
Book.___/lA__ 
Copyright^!*. 

CDPyRIGW DEPOSIT 



THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE NORMAL 

SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC 

SCHOOL SYSTEM 



BY 

ERNEST O. HOLLAND. Ph. D. 

SUPEEINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY 

SOMETiaiE FELLOW IN EDUCATION 

TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVEESITY 



TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION, NO. 55 



PUBLISHED BY 

Emti^svs ffloll^g?, Ololttmbta MmvtVBit^ 

NEW YORK CITY 

1912 

MonofrafM 






Copyright, 1912, by Ernest O. Holland 



^CI.A327006 






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PREFACE 

This study in practical school administration was undertaken 
in the spring of 1910 in connection with the graduate work I 
was then doing at Teachers College. Grateful acknowledgment 
for helpful criticisms and suggestions is especially due the com- 
mittee in charge of my dissertation, — ^Professors Monroe, Suz- 
zallo and Strayer. I am also indebted to Professor E. L. Thorn- 
dike and Mr. M. B. Hillegas, of Teachers College, who care- 
fully examined the statistical tables I have prepared in connec- 
tion with my study. To Professor E. P. Cubberley, of Leland 
Stanford, Junior, University, I am indebted for the critical ex- 
amination of several of the chapters and to Mr. H. B. Moore, 
of the Boys High School, Louisville, Kentucky, for assistance in 
revising my manuscript. Finally, I must take this opportunity 
to thank the leading educators of Pennsylvania for their sugges- 
tions and encouragement and for the careful reading of my 
thesis. 

E. O. H. 
Louisville, Kentucky, April, 1912. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. 
I. 

II. 



III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XL 



Introduction : Object and Scope of Investigation 

History of the Establishment of the Pennsyl- 
vania State Normal Schools . 

Present Management . . . . 

The Entrance Requirements 

The Curriculum ..... 

Advertising Methods and Special Courses 

The State Board Examinations 

The Student Body ..... 

The Faculty ...... 

The Relation of the State Normal Schools to 
the Public High Schools 

Conclusions . . . . . . 



PAGE 

I 

5 

12 

37 
46 

5° 
58 
62 

74 

80 
91 



THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE NORMAL 
SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION : OBJECT AND SCOPE OF INVESTI- 
GATION 

The writer has undertaken to present a critical survey of the 
provision made in the state of Pennsylvania for the training 
of teachers in the state normal schools. A study of this 
kind might be undertaken with regard to any one of several 
aspects of any state system of education. In any such study 
the method must be largely comparative. The basis of the 
criticism which is expressed as the result of such an investigation 
is, of necessity, that practice found elsewhere in the United 
States which is commonly considered more satisfactory from 
the standpoint of our ideals of educational efficiency. We have 
not yet developed methods of measurement which will enable 
one to prove either the efficiency or inefficiency of any part of 
our school system by applying objective measures other than 
those commonly employed in the comparisons indicated above. 

The thirteen state normal schools of Pennsylvania were ex- 
amined as to management and control, equipment, teaching force, 
and student body. The school work of these institutions was also 
carefully examined to discover their influence upon the entire 
public school system of the state. For this purpose the writer 
spent in Pennsylvania from the middle of March until the first of 
June, 1910, visiting these institutions. He went into the class- 
rooms and personally questioned hundreds of students as to their 
previous academic preparation. He also inspected the general 
equipment, held conferences with prominent citizens of the 
locality, with the principals of the normal schools, and with mem- 
bers of the boards of trustees. Finally, by visiting the public 
schools of the locality, he endeavored to discover how they were 
affected by the presence of a state normal school. In addition, 

I 



2 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

the writer has been aided in the study by leading educators of the 
state who have offered many vakiable suggestions and have 
carefully examined and criticised the manuscript. 

Soon after the inquiry was begun, the investigator was im- 
pressed with the influence exerted by the thirteen normal schools 
of the state. It seemed to him that these schools, privately 
controlled and managed, although supported by public funds, 
are the dominant educational influence of the state. It appeared 
also that the normal schools of Pennsylvania occupy a dual 
position : that they were at the same time training schools for 
teachers and secondary or college preparatory schools. The 
relation of the normal schools to the whole school system of the 
state is indicated in the following chart : 



Colleges and Universities 
4 years 



Normal School 
4 years 



High School 
4 years 



Common Schools 
8 years 



The state of Pennsylvania is appropriating public money both 
for the public high schools and for the normal schools, which are 
doing largely the same kind of work. Because of this duplication 
in function, the academic work in both types of institution is 
seriously affected ; the enrollment in the secondary schools of 
the state is comparatively small ; the proportion of high schools 
of the lowest grade is abnormally large; and the geographical 
distribution of all grades of secondary schools has been largely 
determined by the location of the state normal schools. 

Contrasted with the educational status in Pennsylvania, below 
appears a chart, showing the relationship of the various types of 



Object and Scope of Investigation 3 

institution, which experience in the most progressive states has 
demonstrated will produce the best results : 





Colleges and Uni- 
versities 
4 years 


Normal School 
2 years 


High School 
4 years 


Common Schools 
8 years 



The Pennsylvania school code of 191 1 is a step in the right 
direction, but Pennsylvania cannot hope to rank with the best 
states of the country unless she is willing to go further in con- 
structive school legislation. This new law of 191 1 provides for 
the establishment of a state board of education. Later, when 
additional laws are enacted giving this central board wide powers 
in the examination and certification of teachers^ in the distribu- 
tion of public funds to local communities and in the careful 
supervision of all publicly-supported schools, then Pennsylvania 
will have in many respects a modern public school system. 

It should be noted here, moreover, that the new school code 
has made provision, enabling the state to acquire possession of 
the normal schools. This cannot be accomplished for several 
years, but when it is accomplished, the duplication of work by the 
normal schools and the high schools will cease, the former devot- 
ing themselves to the training of teachers, the latter to the strictly 
academic preparation of boys and girls to enter the higher insti- 
tutions of learning — which will then include the normal schools — 
or directly into the varying activities of life. Of course, the 
transition will, of necessity, be gradual rather than abrupt. It 
will be necessary, if the state is to develop a unified system of 
education, so to arrange the courses in the normal schools that 
every encouragement will be given to the local community to 
provide high school education in preparation for professional 



4 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

training in the normal school. To this end full credit in the 
normal school course as at present organized, should be given 
for work done in high schools which are recognized by the state 
department. In order to develop professional training based 
upon a four years' high school course, the normal schools should 
offer courses leading to recognition, by diploma or otherwise, in 
advance of that now commonly offered to students who com- 
plete a four year normal school course on the basis of merely 
elementary school training. 



CHAPTER II 

HISTORY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PENN- 
SYLVANIA STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS 

In order to understand clearly the establishment and the 
present condition of the Pennsylvania state normal schools, it is 
necessary to trace the movement which led up to the passage of 
the normal school act of 1857. 

With the exception of Delaware, Tennessee, Alabama, and 
Florida, all the states of the Union maintain separate normal 
schools for the training of teachers which receive funds from 
the public treasury. In Pennsylvania alone these schools are pri- 
vate corporations over which the state exercises little effectual 
control. In all the other states the normals are an integral part 
of the state educational system, under the complete control of 
state authorities. Whether this policy of state subvention, as 
contrasted with state control, is of itself likely to produce good 
results should appear from an examination of actual conditions 
in the thirteen normal schools of this state. 

The policy of subvention is, apparently, consistent with the 
general educational policy. There is no state university. Penn- 
sylvania State College, which receives the money from the Fed- 
eral land grants, has only three representatives on a governing 
board of thirty-two members. Moreover, in other fields the same 
policy prevails. Private hospitals throughout the state receive 
state aid in large appropriations, unchecked by state direction. 

As early as 1749 the leading citizens of Pennsylvania realized 
that definite steps must be taken to provide well-qualified teach- 
ers, and from that year to 1786 many schools were authorized 
to aid in the preparation of teachers. This work they did on 
their own initiative until 1786, when, through the efforts of 
Doctor Benjamin Rush, the state adopted a policy which it con- 
tinued for fifty years " of chartering colleges and academies and 
aiding them by appropriations from the public treasury, on the 

5 



6 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

ground, and with the expectation, that in addition to their proper 
functions they would prepare teachers of lower grade." 

Under the authority of the act of 1786 several schools^ es- 
tablished courses for the training of teachers, and received small 
sums from the state in recognition. This was the status of 
teacher-training in Pennsylvania until 1840. 

By act of legislature in 1840, the Joliet Academy of Erie 
county, was recognized as an institution '* for the instruction 
and qualification of teachers of common schools." This institu- 
tion received no aid from the state; it was erected through local 
subscription, and for a few years it probably aided considerably 
in the training of teachers for Erie and Crawford counties. Be- 
cause of the popular belief at this time that all persons intending 
to teach should be especially prepared, many academies adver- 
tised that they offered courses in education. This was particu- 
larly true from 1834 to the passage of the normal school act 
of 1857 which committed the Commonwealth to a definite policy 
with respect to the professional preparation of teachers. 

In 1854 the office of county superintendent was established by 
law. As soon as the direction of the common schools of Penn- 
sylvania was given over to those new officers, it became evident 
that many schools were in very incompetent hands, and the need 
for well prepared teachers was more keenly felt than ever be- 
fore. Owing to the fact that the state did not have institutions 
giving professional work, a local substitute had to be found, 
and during the first year of the existence of county superinten- 
dents, six or eight of the best counties established local and tem- 
porary schools for teachers. Their example was followed by 
other superintendents for the next few years. The largest and 
most prosperous of these local schools was the " Normal Insti- 
tute," begun in 1855 at Millersville, Lancaster county, by 
James P. Wickersham who later became state superintendent. 
Its success was so great that many of the citizens of Lancaster 
county contributed money freely in order to erect a permanent 
county normal school. This institution was looked upon as a 
model for those the state should establish, since it showed what 
splendid results could be accomplished in the preparation of 
teachers. 



^ Washington College, Jefferson College, Reading Academy, Pennsyl- 
vania College, Allegheny College and Marshall College among the number. 



History of Establishment - 7 

In the meantime, the leading educators began to urge that the 
state no longer leave entirely to local initiative the important 
duty of giving normal instruction. They believed that in some 
way the state should recognize the work that those local normal 
schools were doing, though it should not support them. This 
policy was advocated by Burro wes in an article published in 1866 
in Barnard's Journal, in which he said : " Normal Schools, like 
other professional institutions, ought not to be established by 
and at the expense of the State, and should be no further con- 
trolled by the State than is necessary to give value and authority 
to their diplomas." Other leading educators also advocated this 
policy which was finally adopted when the normal school act was 
passed. 

In 1856 Thomas H. Burro wes, at the request of State Superin- 
tendent Curtin, made a statement outlining the kind of institu- 
tion that might be approved by the state. This plan, with few 
modifications, was drafted into a bill which was presented to 
the Pennsylvania legislature in 1857 and adopted by that body. 

The act contained the following provisions : 

1. The state to be divided into twelve districts, each with a 
normal school. 

2. These schools to be erected and controlled by private cor- 
porations. A corporation might have as few as thirteen 
contributors or stockholders. 

3. Pecuniary affairs to be managed by a board of trustees. 
No contributor or stockholder to have more than five votes at 
the election of trustees. No religious test for contributor, stock- 
holder, trustee, professor, or student. A detailed fiscal report 
to be made out annually to the state superintendent. 

4. Following requirements as to equipment : 

a. Ten acres of land. 

b. Buildings for accommodation of three hundred 

students. 

c. Model school containing at least one hundred 

students. 

d. Faculty of at least six professors. 

5. Course of study and entrance qualifications to be deter- 
mined by normal school principals when approved by the state 
superintendent. 

6. Each normal school to admit one student annually from 
each common school district (in the normal school district) at 
not more than five dollars per term to be paid by the local board 



8 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

of school directors. Said student toi teach in his own district at 
least three years after graduating. 

7. Examinations for graduation to be conducted by a board 
of principals ; certificates or diplomas granted. After two terms 
of successful teaching each normal school graduate to be given 
permanent license to teach anywhere in the state. Teachers 
in service, holding provisional certificates, also to take the ex- 
aminations in order to receive a higher certificate. 

In the main, these were the conditions laid down by law for 
the establishment and maintenance of normal schools, which 
were to receive absolutely no financial support from the state. 
Each institution at the beginning was free to elect any number 
of trustees and to manage its affairs with practically no inter- 
ference from the state. 

The first school recognized under this act as a state normal 
school was located at Millersville in Lancaster county. In 1854 
the office of county superintendent was established by law. 
Shortly thereafter the citizens of Millersville were erecting an 
academy that should carry the pupils somewhat beyond the com- 
mon school branches. County Superintendent Wickersham, who 
felt that something must be done to prepare new teachers and 
improve those already in the service, learned that the academy 
buildings when completed might serve his purpose in conducting 
a teachers' school. The trustees not only offered him the use of 
these buildings, but even offered him one thousand dollars to 
assist in the conduct of the school. This plan was accepted, 
and, as has been stated elsewhere, the school was begun as the 
" Lancaster County Normal Institute " on April 17, 1855, under 
the direction of the county superintendent. 

From the beginning the institution was so prosperous and 
seemed to meet the needs of the community so well, that the 
trustees and other leading citizens held several conferences and 
decided to change its character, giving more attention to the pro- 
fessional preparation of teachers than to the purely cultural 
work, to enlarge the building to suit the purpose, and finally, 
to establish a permanent normal school. In the fall of the same 
year the plans were consummated. 

As soon as the act of 1857 was passed, the trustees began to 
make efforts to meet the requirements. This meant considerable 
expenditure for equipment, additional land, and a larger faculty. 



History of Establishment . 9 

Great interest was taken, — leading citizens from adjoining coun- 
ties and even the governor and state superintendent attended a 
public meeting and urged those who could do so to assist this 
institution to meet the rather high standards laid down by the 
act of. 1857. All the stipulations were finally met in December, 
1859, when the proper authorities recognized the institution as 
the first so-called state normal school. 

From the beginning the Millersville normal school has had a 
large attendance and has been prosperous. It began with a sub- 
scribed stock of $25,000 and a bonded indebtedness of $25,000 
additional. There was also a small floating indebtedness. Be- 
cause of the location of the school and its efficient management, 
it actually made money and a few thousand dollars were annually 
added to the sinking fund. It asked for no appropriation from 
the state and it received none. It was purely a private institu- 
tion whose work had been approved by the state and whose di- 
plomas were, according to the law, given recognition by the 
public school officials. 

The early history of the next four normal schools to be estab- 
lished is identically parallel with that of Millersville. Private 
institutions, they exerted themselves to reach the requirements 
set by the act of 1857, and when those requirements were met, 
they were recognized as state normals, no one of them having 
asked or received state aid in any form. Edinboro Normal 
School, located in Erie county, was recognized in 1861 ; Mans- 
field Normal, located at Mansfield, Tioga county, in 1862; Kutz- 
town Normal School, in Berks county, in 1866; Bloomsburg 
Normal School, at Bloomsburg, Columbia county, in 1869. 

In the history of the establishment of the West Chester 
Normal School in 1871, and the Shippensburg Normal in 1873 
there is one significant variation. Toward the purchase of land 
and the erection of buildings the state gave to the West Chester 
Normal School the sum of $15,000 and shortly after to the 
Shippensburg Normal School $35,000, though both remained, 
equally with the schools previously established, purely private in- 
stitutions. 

The establishment and final recognition of the eighth normal 
school, located at California, marks a complete change of policy 
by the state. Up to this time all the institutions had been built 



lo Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

entirely through private initiative and support, as the act of 1857 
stipulated, though two had been aided by specific appropriations 
from the state. But the circumstances of the establishment of 
this school were different. 

During the movement for better prepared teachers, few insti- 
tutions in the southwestern part of the state offered instruction 
to persons preparing to teach and, as a result, the county super- 
intendents were compelled to conduct temporary normal insti- 
tutes; but finally in 1862 a building was erected at Millsboro, 
Washington county, and a permanent normal school established. 
However, the school met with some discouragements and two of 
the teachers accepted positions in the academy located at Cali- 
fornia. This academy had been in existence since 1852, and in 
1859 ^^ attempt was made to induce the legislature to lower the 
standards set by the normal school act and accept the academy 
with its poorer equipment. The legislature did pass an act to 
this effect, but the governor wisely vetoed it. 

In 1865, the legislature was induced to grant a charter to the 
" South Western Normal College," which name should continue 
" until and before the time when it may be recognized as a State 
Normal School." The citizens of the town refused to give more 
money to this new venture unless the state would pledge itself 
to accept the institution when the improvements were completed. 
Therefore, in 1869 the legislature was asked to enter into a con- 
tract binding the state to accept the institution after certain con- 
ditions were complied with. This act stipulated that the state 
superintendent's approval of the town of California as a suit- 
able location for a state normal school was to be the first step. 
Then, if the president of the board of trustees of the South 
Western Normal School would state under oath " that said Col- 
lege has a bona fide subscription fund for the erection of its 
buildings, a sum of at least twenty thousand dollars, and that 
there is expended in the erection of their buildings a sum of at 
least ten thousand," then the state would aid to the extent of 
five thousand dollars. And in the next two years, if the college 
authorities expended thirty thousand dollars, the state promised 
to give the ten thousand dollars. 

As early as 1872, the friends of the California institution were 
able to get the additional grant of $10,000 though it was not 



History of Establishment 1 1 

recognized by the state until 1874. The other existing normal 
schools were practically under the control of private individuals, 
— 'the stockholders — and in no true sense could they be called 
state institutions; but the men interested in the California 
Normal School were able to change the attitude of the legis- 
lature toward state adoption and state support, though still leav- 
ing the control in the hands of private individuals. 

Since 1874 the policy of the state has followed the precedent 
set in the case of the California Normal. Five additional state 
normals have been recognized, and in each instance the state has 
assisted with increasingly liberal appropriations, at the same 
time leaving the schools under private management and control. 
The schools so established are: Indiana Normal, in Indiana 
county, recognized in 1875; Lock Haven in Clinton county, in 
1877; Clarion Normal, in Clarion county, in 1886; Slippery 
Rock, in Butler county, in 1889; and the last of Pennsylvania's 
state normals at East Stroudsburg, in Monroe county, in 1893. 

This brief history of the establishment of the thirteen state 
normal schools shows how the spirit of the original act of 1857 
was misinterpreted or consciously modified. The legislature 
which passed this act did not hold out a promise of any kind and 
did not offer financial assistance under any circumstances. 
When gradually the state was induced to give special grants for 
the establishment of these schools and later to make annual ap- 
propriations for their maintenance, these institutions became 
what they are today, — publicly-supported institutions under the 
control and ownership of private corporations. 



CHAPTER III 

PRESENT MANAGEMENT 

For many years, the national and many of the state govern- 
ments have required the officials in charge of public institutions 
to render a full and strict accounting of their stewardship. 
These detailed reports are always open to the public: any tax- 
payer may go to one of these institutions and personally ex- 
amine the records and books. Public control has extended even 
to private business : within the past few years the national and 
most of the state governments have passed stringent laws regu- 
lating the conduct of corporations, both large and small, and 
of insurance and railroad companies. In fact, all private insti- 
tutions that affect to any extent the public welfare have been 
placed under public supervision and control. In the light of 
these facts, it is startling to find in the wealthy and populous 
state of Pennsylvania institutions that are publicly supported 
but privately controlled, that render only stereotyped reports 
and that are practically free from state supervision. Probably 
in no other state of the Union can a like condition be found. 

As has been explained previously, the so-called state normal 
schools have been, and are, conducted as private corporations 
with practically no control on the part of the state. The law 
of 1857 simply stipulated that there should be not less than 13 
contributors or stockholders, and " that the pecuniary affairs 
of each of said schools shall be managed, and the general con- 
trol exercised by a Board of Trustees, (whose officers shall be 
a President and Secretary who shall, and a Treasurer who shall 
not, be members of said Board,) to be chosen by the contribu- 
tors or stockholders on the first Monday in May annually; but 
no contributor, or stockholder shall have more than five votes 
at the election of trustees. . . ." 

The state could take no direct part in the election of trustees, 
since, under the law, these schools were private institutions ; but 
as soon as the state began to give them money, many legislators 

12 



Present Management 13 

and educators contended that it should have something to say 
as to how these appropriations should be spent. Therefore in 
February, 1872, the legislature passed an act providing that no 
board should have more than 15 members, and authorizing the 
State Superintendent " to appoint two citizens to act as 
trustees " of each normal school " on the part of the State." In 
April of the same year it further stipulated that no school " shall 
receive an appropriation from the State" unless these two per- 
sons appointed by the State Superintendent were permitted " to 
act as trustees on the part of the state, with all the rights and 
privileges of other trustees." 

In 1875, the State passed an act requiring each state normal 
school to " be managed by a board of eighteen trustees, twelve 
elected by the contributors or stockholders and six appointed by 
the Superintendent of Public Instruction." In 1907, the latter 
number was increased to nine. These nine were to be ap- 
pointed by the State Superintendent from a list of twice that 
number, submitted to him by the stockholders. However, if 
these nominees should not be satisfactory to him, " he shall, 
with the advice and consent of the governor, choose others 
deemed more suitable." But in spite of these provisions, owing 
to the natural difficulty experienced by the State Superintendent 
to discover incompetence, the evils of the private corporation 
still persist. 

Seldom does the State Superintendent interfere by refusing 
to appoint those nominated by the stockholders. Recently, the 
present incumbent has made a ruling to the effect that he would 
not appoint as trustee to represent the state anyone who is a 
stockholder in the normal school corporation. But at a mo- 
ment's notice a stockholder can transfer his holdings to his 
wife, to his five-year-old son, or to an accommodating neighbor, 
and then the man is eligible to become a state trustee. In some 
respects this ruling does harm for it encourages duplicity. 
Often a man owning stock is much more conscientious and 
careful in guarding the interests of the state than is a bank 
clerk, or book-keeper, who is employed by a stockholder and 
a trustee and .who as a " dummy " votes as he is told. The 
ruling of the state superintendent will not in any sense meet 
the difficulty. 



14 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

In practically all the so-called State Normal Schools of Penn- 
sylvania — schools conducted as private corporations — the stock 
has been gradually purchased by a very small group of men, 
who absolutely control the institutions which receive hundreds 
of thousands of dollars annually from the state. Many kinds 
of organizations are found : in one place a bank controls ; in 
another three or four men, including a banker, dominate the 
close corporation; in still another, one man who owns a ma- 
jority of the stock and who selects his own board of trustees, 
is principal of the institution and receives a large salary; in 
another, two or three men connected with the institution hold a 
majority of the stock, have themselves elected to positions in 
the school and determine their own salaries. Strange as it may 
seem, in many cases the men who dominate did not contribute 
any considerable amount to the erection or growth of the insti- 
tuition they manage. In one or two instances, the control has 
been purchased for two or three hundred dollars, though in 
others, as much as eight or ten thousand has been given by one 
or two men to obtain practical ownership of property which, to- 
day, because of the sacrifice of others and the bounty of the 
state, is worth from two hundred thousand to three-quarters of 
a million dollars. 

The Millersville State Normal School. Recognized by the 
State in 1859. 

At the Millersville State Normal School, the oldest of the thir- 
teen institutions, one man, the principal, holds a majority of the 
stock, and so is the practical owner of a plant worth over a half- 
million dollars. Of this amount the state has contributed over 
$380,000.^ 

The story of the handling of stock at Millersville goes back 
to the very beginning. This normal school started with a sub- 
scribed stock of $25,000, widely scattered among the leading 
citizens of Millersville and Lancaster county. The par value 
of the shares was $25. There was also a bonded indebtedness 
of $25,000 additional, with a small floating indebtedness. At 

^ The following statements concerning the management and condition 
of the Pennsylvania state normal schools are based upon a personal inves- 
tigation made by the author during the spring and summer of 1910. The 
author is not conversant vi\\h changes that may have been made since that 
date. 



Present Management - 15 

the beginning this institution asked for no aid from the state, 
and it would have been successful for a good many years, prob- 
ably, without any help. Later, however, it received a good deal 
of money from the state. By 1878 the amount of money given 
by Pennsylvania as a direct gift, had exceeded $55,000 and the 
appropriations to graduates were in excess of $3,000. During 
this year, the trustees passed a resolution to the effect that any 
stockholder might dispose of his holdings to the institution at 
their face value, or he might contribute the stock if he pre- 
ferred. This action was taken by the trustees for the ostensible 
purpose of doing away with the stock control and preventing at- 
tempts to declare dividends. 

But there is another phase of the story that must not be 
omitted. For a number of years previous to this action of the 
board a few of the trustees quietly bought up or had given to 
them large blocks of stock. This was not a difficult thing to do, 
since the shares were considered practically worthless. Upon 
good authority, it was learned that three trustees cleared up 
among them the sum of $15,000. All told a little over $22,000 
was spent in buying up the normal school stock. About eighty- 
five per cent of the shares were purchased at par, with an addi- 
tional four per cent given outright by public-spirited citizens 
who refused to turn a philanthropic venture into profit. About 
ten per cent of the stock was still held by the trustees of the 
normal school. These shares, less than two hundred in number, 
were surrendered by these officials, who received in their place 
" certificates of contribution," which carried with them the same 
privileges as the original shares of stock so that each holder of 
a certificate might vote for the trustees. Since the stockholders 
had surrendered their rights, the owners of the certificates be- 
came the permanent managers of the school with no possibility 
of having the control wrested from them. In a word, these men 
had acquired absolute control, and this control was gained at a 
cash profit of from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. 

When the stock was transferred into " certificates of contribu- 
tion," the control of the institution fell into the hands of three 
or four men. ' The complete domination of the few men who 
owned the certificates of contribution continued for twenty-five 
years. In 1903 or 1904, a man living at Lancaster, four miles 



1 6 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

away, began to buy up all the certificates he could. It is esti- 
mated that he was compelled to pay from two to four times 
their par value because their purchase meant the permanent 
control of an institution whose yearly income was over $100,000. 
In the spring of 1904, the principal bought a controlling interest 
in the normal school, and to-day he probably holds all but 
seventy-five or eighty of the hundred and eighty-nine certificates 
of contribution. 

In a good many respects the institution at present is in better 
hands than it has been in the twenty-five years preceding the 
purchase of the certificates by the principal; but this condition 
is no argument for the situation as it stands to-day. Here is an 
institution liberally supported by the state and controlled by one 
man who may dismiss half his teachers at a moment's notice, or 
reconstruct his board of trustees. The members of the board, 
instead of having to look to a large body of stockholders in the 
community or to the state as a whole for approval of their acts, 
have simply to turn to one man, the principal: if he approves, 
they continue in office; if he objects, half the members of the 
board, (those representing "the contributors") will not receive 
his support for re-election when their term expires, and the other 
half, (those representing the state) will not be recommended by 
him to the state superintendent for reappointment. This means 
that in time he can rid himself of any trustee that objects to 
him personally or to his methods of conducting the school. 

Date of visit: March 24 and May 18 and 19, 1910. 

The Edinboro State Normal School. Recognized by the state 
in 1861, 

In 1 861 when the Edinboro Academy was transformed into 
the present institution, which was accepted by the state as a 
normal school, several hundred shares were issued, representing 
donations by private citizens of amounts varying from five dollars 
to one thousand dollars each. A gift, regardless of its size, 
meant a vote. In this school there has been a long struggle for 
control, and there has also been the same speculation with stock 
as at Millersville, though not with the intention of selling it to 
the institution or to the state. Nearly from the beginning there 
has been trouble, either between the principal and his trustees, 



Present Management - 17 

or between the management and the town. In 1892, the fight 
happened to be between the principal, J. A. Cooper, and a 
majority of his board. After these men had employed detective 
methods against the head of the school, they called a special 
meeting of the board and dismissed him. Practically the entire 
student body and nearly all the teachers rallied to his support. 
As a consequence, a large number of the students entered another 
normal school, and the institution dwindled from over six 
hundred to fifteen students, " consisting largely of the children 
of the trustees and their immediate friends." 

For a long time, possibly for twenty-five years, a small group 
of men has dominated this school, and the contest for the past 
two elections, which involved the entire village, has mainly been 
to unseat these men. As a consequence, the model school has 
gradually dwindled until it has less than ninety pupils in all the 
grades ; and several of the classes number less than five pupils. 
The practice teaching is therefore really worthless. 

Evidence of the domination of this group is the fact that its 
members furnished practically all the supplies to the normal 
school. Especially was this true before the law of April 23, 
1903, which made it a misdemeanor for a trustee to furnish 
supplies to a normal school, but even after the passage of this 
act some of the trustees were willing to take their chances with 
the enforcement of the law.^ 

In the spring of 1909 State Superintendent Schaeffer learned 
of the election contest, and finally he and the governor appointed 
two or three non-partisans. Shortly after these men came on the 
board, expert auditors were employed to go over the books of the 
school corporation. There seems to be conclusive evidence that 
the system of bookkeeping was miserable and that for several 
years no method was employed to keep a complete record of 
expenditures and receipts. 

Since the members appointed in May, 1909, by the governor 
and the state superintendent have been on the board, the whole 
system of bookkeeping has been reconstructed, many of the 
abuses have disappeared and the entire school will probably be 
put upon a better financial and educational plane. 

Date of visit: April 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19, 1910. 

^The writer examined the secretary's books and records from 1900 to 
ic/io. 



1 8 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

The Mansfield State Normal School. Recognized by the state 
in 1862. 

The history of the Mansfield Normal School is similar to that 
of both Millersville and Edinboro. When the school became 
a so-called state institution in 1864, the 375 shares of stock 
were widely distributed. Some of these had been paid in cash — 
fifty dollars a share — by the business men in the village and the 
well-to-do farmers of Tioga county; and some of the shares 
were given to persons who had made their contribution to the 
educational institution through work on the buildings or grounds. 
When the school began to send out well-prepared teachers to 
Tioga and adjoining counties, the people were glad that they 
had assisted in its creation and growth. Gradually, however, 
tho^e farmers living some distance from the village neglected 
or were unable to attend the annual meeting of the stockholders ; 
others that had given freely to the institution moved away. 
Later, when the older donors died, the stock fell into the hands 
of younger persons who looked upon it as a doubtful asset, 
regarding it as an empty heritage rather than a real obligation. 
Finally, only those in the village of Mansfield were sufficiently 
in touch with the work and the needs of the school to attend 
the elections and become members of the board of trustees. The 
individuals especially interested were those who furnished sup- 
plies to the school or who had sons or daughters in attendance. 

One of the citizens of Mansfield, Mr. Charles Ross, the banker, 
began to see the possibilities of owning a controlling interest 
in the school. For several years Mr. Ross had bought normal 
school stock and had urged his friends to follow his example. 
To-day he personally owns as much as sixty-five or seventy-five 
shares. For some of this stock he probably paid but $5.00 ; some 
of it may have been given him; but after the contest between 
the Ross party and the other side became heated, stock sold for 
$50.00. Since the law permits an individual to vote but five 
shares, the banker has distributed his additional holdings in 
blocks of five among his friends and employes. At the annual 
election, Mr. Ross obtains proxies from these persons, or he 
induces them to attend the contest and vote his ticket. 

Last year the Ross faction won the contest, elected three men, 
and nominated six other partisans to State Superintendent 



Present Management . 19 

Schaeifer, who, after investigating the situation, appointed three 
non-partisans living outside the village. These men prevented 
Mr. Ross and his adherents from dismissing the principal and 
two or three other teachers. But in the meantime, Mr. Ross has 
purchased more stock, and to-day he and a small group of his 
friends absolutely control the institution. If Superintendent 
Schaefter again appoints three unbiased men to represent the 
state, the condition of the school may not be impaired by the 
dismissal of men who have conducted the school in an efficient 
manner ; but there is great danger either that these teachers will 
refuse to remain longer under such adverse conditions, or that Mr. 
Ross may win over to his side one of the state's representatives, 
and then the school may be disrupted. 
Date of visit: April 5 and 6, 1910. 

The Kutstown State Normal School. Recognized by the state 
in 1866. 

In 1866 the Kutztown Normal School was given state recogni- 
tion. At that time 240 shares were issued on donations of 
$24,000 for land and buildings. This institution was established 
by the Germans of Berks county to furnish better educational 
advantages for their children. Here as elsewhere there has been 
a gradual concentration of the active stock, and the control now 
rests very largely in the hands of two or three families. 

One German family controls forty-six shares of stock. Each 
member of this family having more than five shares has dis- 
tributed them' so that the full voting power can be utilized in an 
emergency. At the annual election held in May, 1910, but 
twenty-nine votes were cast, so it would seem that no one except 
those directly connected with the school, either as employe or 
as trustee, attends these important meetings. The purpose of 
the founders and of the state has been defeated since the stock- 
holding feature of these schools was to arouse the intelligent 
interest of an entire community. 

Date of visit: May 5, 1910. 

The Bloomshurg Literary Institute and State Normal School. 
Recognized by the state in 1869. 

The Bloomsburg Normal School, from 1869, when it was 
accepted, till 1890 or later, was in such financial difficulties that it 



20 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

attracted the attention only of men who were genuinely interested 
in the school. Gradually, however, the financial side became 
better and as this occurred, the active stock found its way into 
the hands of a few men. To-day the school plant is estimated 
to be worth over $600,000 ; the funds of the school are kept in 
one bank, and something very similar to a close corporation 
exists. Most of the heavy stockholders are trustees and they 
take considerable pride in the institution which they direct. The 
stock has no particular value and there has been but one im- 
portant contest in recent years in the selection of members of the 
board. Proof that the stock of the Bloomsburg Normal School 
is owned or controlled by a small group of men is found in the 
annual election of trustees by the stockholders at the May 
meeting this year (1910). Between four and five hundred 
shares were represented, but not over fifteen men were in attend- 
ance. In this school, contrary to the spirit of the law, practically 
every state trustee owns stock. In fact, of the nine men who 
were chosen to guard the State's interests, all but one either 
own outright or control a number of shares. 
Date of visit: March 31 and May 28, 1910. 

The West Chester State Normal School. Recognized by the 
state in 1871. 

From the beginning, up to nearly the present day, the West 
Chester Normal School has been fairly well managed. Its control 
rested with the owners of the 825 shares of stock, which were 
sold originally at fifty dollars a share. These shares were widely 
distributed for a long time, for every public-spirited citizen, 
who was financially able, had been called upon to assist in the 
making of a state normal. Even during the first year, 1871, 
it was necessary for the state to assist to the extent of fifteen 
thousand dollars. 

For a long time this stock was considered worthless, but later, 
when the attendance increased and the state gave more freely, 
this stock began to be very valuable from one point of view : 
each of the West Chester banks wanted to keep the normal 
school deposits and to transact its business. Finally, several 
years ago, directors of a prominent national bank spent several 
thousand dollars for normal school stock. They turned into 



Present Management - 21 

the collateral security fund of their national bank all of this 
stock for which they had paid from six to fifteen dollars a share, 
and it seemed that their action had neither cost them anything 
nor harmed the bank. Later, however, the national bank ex- 
aminer or the government comptroller objected to this arrange- 
ment and the result was that either the bank or these men had 
to replace the money which they had spent for normal school 
stock. After considerable discussion among the bank directors, 
two of them stood personally responsible for the cost of this 
stock and so became the practical owners of the institution worth 
over a half million dollars, toward the management and de- 
velopment of which the State had already given over $300,000. 

In 1908 after several consultations among the three or four 
men holding a majority of stock, these men requested in writing 
the president of the board, Levi G. McCauley, to call a special 
meeting of the trustees. This meeting was held December 7, 
1908, and resolutions were offered that the West Chester Normal 
School " purchase .... such of its capital stock, not however 
to exceed 800 shares thereof, .... and pay for each share there- 
of the sum of $50.00, the par value . . . .," and that " the said 
school shall borrow the moneys needed for the purchase 
thereof . . . ." The eighteen members of the board attended 
this meeting and the vote on the resolutions carried by twelve 
for and six against. 

A number of the stockholders in the West Chester Normal 
School, including two or three trustees, brought suit against the 
president, secretary, and treasurer of the school, and asked for 
an injunction to prevent the buying of the stock. Because of 
a technical legal mistake in the wording of the resolutions sub- 
mitted to the trustees at the meeting on December 7, another 
meeting was called on December 31, 1908, and this fault was 
rectified. In the end, the court ruled that the action taken by 
a majority of the board of trustees was legal, and at once the 
injunction was dissolved. Since then, stock offered for sale 
has been purchased by the school. 

In order to show the spirit of these men who practically own 
the West Chester Normal School, one should read the answer 
of the defendants to the request of the plaintiffs in the injunction 



2 2 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

suit brought by the latter. Paragraph ten of the request states 
that " the only income of said corporation the Normal School 
is derived from the tuition and board of students, and from 
appropriations made by the State of Pennsylvania .... and 
said State further contributes aid to students thereat desiring 
education ; that its revenues from all sources are no more than 
sufficient to meet legitimate operating expenses from year to 
year, and to make the necessary extensions and improvements 
to carry out the objects of its incorporation." The reply to this 
was that the school made money and that very recently as much 
as $60,000 had been spent on unnecessary extensions and im- 
provements. " The unnecessary expense " referred to was for a 
new library with modern equipment. 

In another paragraph, the defendants object to the salaries paid 
the teachers ; they believe that these salaries are very high. The 
average salary paid the men teachers at West Chester, exclusive 
of the principal's salary, is $1,541.66, and that paid the women 
is $812.50. 

In paragraph fourteen, of the answers of the defendants, we 
come upon this statement : " The tangible property and assets 
of the corporation are worth, as we believe, $750,000 or more; 
the indebtedness of the corporation, according to the plaintiffs' 
averment, is but $142,800, so that over and above all indebted- 
ness there is actual and tangible property to the amount of 
$600,000, or thereabouts. This property belongs to the share- 
holders, owning 825 shares of the capital stock, so that each 
share thereof, is worth in the neighborhood of $700, instead of 
$50." These statements were made regardless of the fact that 
the state had given the normal school between three and four 
hundred thousand dollars. 

Date of visit: May 13, 14, 16, and 17, 1910. 

The Shippensburg State Normal School. Recognized by the 
state in 1873. 

The Shippensburg Normal School is controlled by a small 
group of men whom it would be practically impossible to dis- 
possess. Several years ago George H. Stewart, a wealthy banker 
and a dominant figure in the affairs of the town, became inter- 
ested in the conduct of the normal school. When the institu- 



Present Management . 23. 

tion was started in 1871, he was a contributor, and later he 
probably was called upon to assist it over financial difficulties. 
In recent years, the school has been rather prosperous, and its 
complete control is now in the hands of Mr. Stewart, his bank 
(the First National), and his immediate friends. 

It has been stated above that the group of men now control- 
ling this school were not in any danger of having to surrender 
to another group. There is one definite reason for this asser- 
tion : the stock book is so complicated and so unintelligible that 
no one can state exactly how much stock is outstanding. At the 
beginning, probably 800 shares were issued at $25 a share. Of 
these, the late Captain T. P. Blair, who donated the land for 
the school, received half, which he scattered very widely for 
voting purposes. Some of these shares have been lost and 
others have been given to or purchased by the bank group at 
little cost. 

About 1895, the trustees voted that one-third of the tuition 
might be paid by normal stock. Only sons and daughters of 
stockholders were supposed to receive such reductions, but it 
was an exceedingly easy matter for a parent to purchase the 
necessary stock and thereby get the reduced tuition. Later, an 
enterprising boarding-house keeper bought up a good many 
shares at a low figure and offered to furnish stock free of charge 
to all pupils that would board with him. The trustees at once 
rescinded their former action, and since then no stock has been 
used to pay tuition either in whole or part. 

The normal school has in its possession today ninety shares 
that have been cancelled; other shares were partly exhausted 
before the board reversed its former ruling, and it is very hard 
to say who owns voting-stock and who does not. Undoubtedly, 
however, the bank group has enough shares to prevent any out- 
sider from disturbing it. At the recent election in May, 1910, 
but five persons attended, and seventy votes were cast. Two of 
these are officers of the First National and one of the re- 
mainder is the treasurer of the school. Although conditions at 
Shippensburg do not appear to be bad it is of course evident 
that a close corporation cannot conduct a school for the best 
educational interests of the state. 

Date of visit: April 8 and July 15, 1910. 



24 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

The California State Normal School. Recognized by the 
state in 1874. 

For a good many years a small group of men has controlled 
the California Normal School and this group is in control to- 
day. When contributions and subscriptions were taken forty 
years ago, several years before the school was given State 
recognition, $18,000 was raised, and proportionate stock was 
issued at $25.00 per share; but at present as far as can be as- 
certained there are only 560 shares that can be accounted for. 

During the thirty-six years of the school's existence, the 
stock has changed hands rather frequently. At one time, when 
the institution was less prosperous, the stock was practically 
worthless, and it was to be had for the asking. Generally, how- 
ever, it has sold for from $2.50 to $6.00 a share. The banks of 
the town became interested in the school just as soon as sur- 
plus funds had to be cared for, and the stockholders and officers 
of one of these banks have a great deal to say as to who shall 
be members of the board of trustees. Some time ago at a meet- 
ing of the stockholders the following by-law relating to the 
matter of counting shares and stock, was passed : 

I, 2 or 3 shares equal i vote. 
4, 5, 6 or 7 shares equal 2 votes. 
8, 9, 10 or II shares equal 3 votes. 
12, 13, 14, or 15 shares equal 4 votes. 
16 or more shares equal 5 votes. 

This is a very innocent looking rule, but it has actually re- 
sulted in preventing the opposition from obtaining control. The 
average disinterested person, holding sixteen shares for instance, 
might attend the annual election of trustees in May and cast 
five votes, or again he might forget the meeting altogether and 
then his stock would not be voted. Another person, holding six- 
teen shares of stock and interested in keeping his own position as 
teacher or officer in the school could, if he chose, bestir himself, 
go to his relatives and friends, sign over to each of them one 
share of stock, and, on election day, instead of casting but five, 
he would be able to cast sixteen votes. In 1909 and in 1910 
there have been contested elections in the California normal 
school, but those in control have not been disturbed. The stock 
book is in their hands. Whenever they detect activity among 



Present Management 25 

the members of the opposition, they have simply to turn to the 
stock book, make an estimate of how many votes at most can be 
mustered against them by the widest distribution of shares, and 
then set to work to distribute their holdings to offset this. 

Three persons, who are directly connected with the adminis- 
tration, are able to control 129 votes of the 250 or 300 usually 
cast at any election, and the present trustees and their im- 
mediate friends can furnish enough more votes to save the day. 
Proof of this statement is to be found in the recent contested 
election, held May, 1910: of the 350 votes cast, those in power 
were able to control two hundred. Most of this additional 
strength came directly from the trustees, for excluding the 
thirty-seven votes of one person, both a teacher and a trustee, 
the other trustees were able to cast over seventy, which, added 
to the one hundred and twenty-nine already accounted for, gave 
those in control a voting strength of approximately two hundred 
out of the three hundred and fifty votes. 

It must not be inferred that if the opposition took control of 
the California Normal School the situation would be materially 
improved; it would simply mean that another close corporation 
would be formed, which would dominate as it pleased. All 
those now connected with the school, who own stock, could be 
dismissed regardless of their efficiency or inefficiency and 
friends of the opposition chosen to take their places with scant 
consideration for the welfare of the school and the work it is 
supposed to do. 

Date of visit: April 29 and 30, 1910. 

The Indiana State Normal School. Recognized by the state 
in 1875. 

The situation in the Indiana State Normal School is rather 
unique: the 2080 shares of stock, issued to the donors of the 
$25,000 for the first school building, are still rather widely dis- 
tributed, though there are enough shares in the hands of two or 
three families to control any election. At present, however, 
these families have not worked together and the oirdinary 
normal school group is not greatly in evidence, though seldom 
do more than fifteen or twenty persons attend the election of 
trustees. Yet, it is very possible that some enterprising 
individual, — a banker or a man desirous of a school position, — 



26 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools ■ 

may appear at any time and, with an expenditure of two thou- 
sand dollars or less, obtain possession of a plant that has cost 
the State over $415,000 in direct and special appropriations, and 
receives between $40,000 and $50,000 more from the State an- 
nually. At present the stock sells for only $2.50 a share or 
ten per cent of its par value. 

Though the original normal school act stipulates that no one 
shall cast more than five votes, the large stockholders at Indi- 
ana cast as many votes as they have shares, and one of the 
trustees claims that the charter granted by the state legislature 
makes the Indiana normal school corporation an exception and 
permits what in other schools would be a violation of the law. 
But even if this were a definite violation, it would not be im- 
portant since at the other institutions the spirit of the law is 
evaded by the extensive use of proxies. 

The size of the town in which this normal school is located 
has been in its favor since the local jealousies are never so much 
in evidence in a city of 10,000 inhabitants as they are in a vil- 
lage or town of one thousand. Besides, there has been little in- 
clination among the trustees of the Indiana normal school to 
employ home talent regardless of its efficiency. This policy has 
enabled the school to obtain the services of many promising 
young men and women from the best American colleges and 
universities. 

Date of visit: April 25, 26, 27, and 28, 1910. 

The Lock Haven State Normal School. Recognized by the 
state in 1877. 

The Lock Haven Normal School which was accepted by the 
State in 1877, was erected through the financial assistance of 
the State legislature and the subscription by the public-spirited 
citizens of the county of 869 shares of stock at twenty-five 
dollars a share. 

Up to the present time there has been no demand for the 
normal school stock. Few shares have changed hands except 
through death and inheritance. On May 6, 1910, an election 
of trustees occurred. Thirty-two persons were present, though 
there was no contest. At this election only sixty-four votes 
were cast. This small number does not in any sense indicate 



Present Management . 27 

the number of shares represented, for about twenty years ago, 
for some reason, a by-law was passed stipulating how the shares 
should be counted for voting purposes. There has been no dis- 
position to modify this rule, which is as follows: 

All persons holding less than 4 shares have i vote. 

All persons holding 4 and less than 10 shares have 2 votes. 

All persons holding 10 and less than 20 shares have 3 votes. 

All persons holding 20 and less than 25 shares have 4 votes. 

All persons holding 25 and over have 5 votes. 

Probably only three men hold in this school corporation as 
many as forty shares each, and only six or eight others own as 
many as twenty or thirty shares apiece. The board of trustees 
seems to be representative, and the citizens generally are inter- 
ested in the progress of the school. This happy condition is 
however an accident. The same opportunity for a selfish man or 
a selfish group to get control exists here as in other similar insti- 
tions. Although in this and in one or two other schools, private 
control for private gain is not a fact, yet it is a danger and under 
the present system must remain a constant danger. 

Date of visit: April 7 and May 28, 1910. 

The Clarion State Normal School. Recognized by the state 
in 1887. 

The group method of control came hard upon the heels of the 
creation of the Clarion State Normal School. Shortly after 
the school was opened, three or four men took control, and this 
condition continued until about 1901, when a rupture occurred 
among the members of the close corporation resulting in the 
dismissal of the principal. This they were easily able to do by 
getting into their hands additional normal school stock, and 
making changes on the board of trustees. In itself this action 
was not exceptional, for such summary dismissals have oc- 
curred in other normal schools of the state; but this particular 
conflict led to a revelation of conditions that shows still another 
danger connected with publicly-supported and privately-con- 
trolled institutions, for it must be remembered that what has 
happened at Clarion may happen at any other Pennsylvania 
normal school. - 

In 1901, it is stated that Representative John A. F. Hoy, of 
Clarion County, announced to his friends on the normal school 



28 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

board of trustees that the school could get $40,000 if they be- 
stirred themselves. They followed his suggestion and sent a 
committee to Harrisburg to ask the legislature to give them that 
amount for a chapel building. The bill passed the house with 
little or no opposition, but it is claimed that one of the poli- 
ticians of the State, James Mitchell, came to Mr. Hoy and the 
normal school committee and stated that certain members of 
the Senate intended to offer opposition to this appropriation. 
Finally this same politician informed them, according to the 
version given to the public by the deposed principal, that if they 
would pay him ten per cent of the appropriation, he would man- 
age it. They agreed and the Senate passed the appropriation, 
but the Governor later reduced it to $27,500. 

Shortly after, the two men who owned a majority of the 
stock submitted Mr. Hoy's name to the Superintendent of 
Public Instruction as a State trustee, and Mr. Hoy was ap- 
pointed. Later Mr. James Mitchell went to Clarion presumably 
to get his percentage of the State's money. Because all normal 
school expenditures had to be reported under oath to the Audi- 
tor General of the State and be approved by him, the trustees 
began to look about for a method of concealing this transaction. 
Finally the business manager at that time, who with the registrar 
was proprietor of the school, said that he had a lot of old 
pipe in the basement of one of the building which had been 
there a long time and was worth nothing. He proposed to 
make out a bill for $2,750, ostensibly for this old scrap and 
with this money to pay Mr. Mitchell. This was done on August 
9, 1901. The nine trustees present voted for the bogus sale. 
On March 22, 1902. an order was made out in favor of Mr. 
Hoy who received $2,750 from the school treasury. Mr. Mit- 
chell, the man who had piloted the normal school bill through 
the Senate, was in Clarion that day, waiting at the hotel; but 
later he claimed he did not get a penny, while Hoy insisted that 
the gentleman received the full amount he had demanded and 
they had promised. 

This entire scandal came out because of the anger of Davis, the 
former principal, due to his dismissal. For some time the 
Clarion Normal School management was considerably worried, 
but after months of anxiety, the entire matter was finally 



Present Management ■ 29 

dropped. On February 26, 1903, the local paper contained a 
statement to the effect that Mr. Davis, the former principal, had 
dismissed his attorneys and had abandoned the prosecution. 

As late as July 10, 1903, I. M. Shannon, a prominent banker 
of the town, published in the local papers a letter to the normal 
school trustees, which began as follows : 

" At a meeting of the board of trustees .... on August 9, 
1901, there was presented for approval by the registrar, James 
Pinks, a certain bill of R. G. Yingling for repairs, etc., amount- 
ing to $2,750, which on motion of W. Day Wilson, was approved 
and the president and secretary were authorized to issue an order 
for the same ; that subsequently to the meeting of the aforesaid, 
an order was duly issued by the president and the secretary to 
the said R. G. Yingling, for the said sum of $2,750 for repairs, 
etc., and on which order J. A. F. Hoy drew said sum of 
$2,750 out of the treasury of the said school along about the 
last day of May following. . . , 

" Your informant being then and now a stockholder in the 
said institution, owning two shares of stock .... and showing 
by the statement of facts aforesaid that the said trustees and 
others have unlawfully taken from the treasury of the said insti- 
tution the sum of $2,750 of the moneys belonging to the Clarion 
State Normal School and have never repaid the same, respect- 
fully requests your honorable board to bring a proper action 
or actions against the parties implicated in the above transaction 
to the end that the said sum of $2,750 may be restored to the 
said treasury." 

Mr. Shannon, the author of the above letter, is still caring for 
the normal school funds. 

One of the most significant things that came out during the 
controversy and futile prosecution was a statement by James 
Pinks, the registrar, who presented the bill rendered by Mr. 
Yingling for $2,750 for some old iron. Mr. Pinks said : 

" The Clarion Normal School is no better nor no worse than 
twelve other normal schools in this state. They have all paid 
to get appropriations and I suppose they will all do it again." 

Another significant thing is to be found in the fact that there 
has been no change in the control of the school. Five of the 
nine men who voted to pay $2,750 for a pile of old iron are 
still members of the board of trustees. 

Recently, the Clarion board of trustees has elected a new man 
as principal; the work of the institution, from an educational 



30 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

point of view, has improved, and the prospects are good. It is 
unfortunate, however, that the men who were implicated in the 
Hoy-Mitchell scandal do not withdraw, but it is practically 
impossible to depose them, since in addition to the fact that they 
control a majority of the stock and are able to select half the 
board outright, their nominations to the state for the other 
board members are generally accepted. The only way the state 
can get control is either by buying up the normal stock at par 
and thereby rewarding these men, or by refusing to aid further 
a so-called state institution which in the main has been managed 
by private individuals for their advantage. 
Date of visit: April 22 and 23, 1910. 

The Slippery Rock State Normal School. Recognized by the 
state in 1889. 

The conditions under which the Slippery Rock Normal School 
is conducted are not dissimilar from those at California, tliough 
the former institution is more prosperous and in it the group 
domination is more evident and powerful. Twenty years ago 
the citizens of Slippery Rock and the adjacent country contri- 
buted about $20,000 in cash and $15,000 in land donations and 
labor. Two hundred shares were issued, which were held by 
about the same number of persons. Because of the location 
of the town, — four miles from a railroad, — the concerted action 
on the part of the people to establish an institution of higher 
learning and to meet the requirements of the normal school act 
was in itself commendable. Those that had much money gave 
freely ; those that were less able contributed but twenty-five or 
fifty dollars ; and those that could give no money, gladly gave 
their labor for a few weeks. Practically every one living in or 
near the little village of Slippery Rock had done something to 
help establish the normal school. A full share was given for 
a hundred dollars in cash, land, or labor, but half or quarter 
shares were also issued. A building was erected in 1889 and in 
the same year the institution was officially recognized as a state 
normal school. 

At that time the normal school stock was widely distributed, 
but the school was too prosperous for this condition to con- 
tinue long. In the past few years the stock has been bought up 
by a small group. The men belonging to this organization have 



Present Management 31 

given from fifteen to one hundred dollars a share in the attempt 
to obtain absolute control, for though the stock has never paid 
any dividends, it is a profitable investment in a great many ways. 
No stock sells below par today and some of it could not be pur- 
chased for three or four times its face value. The people who 
have made these investments are not sentimentalists; they have 
good business sense. It actually pays to hold the stock, as will 
be explained later. 

This close corporation is a family-faculty-bank affair. Five 
or six families belong to it with enough votes to elect them- 
selves and their friends to positions on the normal school board 
of trustees, as directors of the bank, and to positions on the 
faculty of the school. The Citizens' National Bank keeps the 
normal school funds, and its president is also president of the 
normal school board and its cashier is treasurer of the board of 
trustees. The principal of the normal school and one of the 
teachers are directors in the same bank, seven of the teachers own 
stock in the bank, and several others own normal school stock. 

There are several good instructors at Slippery Rock, but ap- 
parently the question of efficiency is not the only or even the 
first standard that is laid down. Teachers either belong to 
prominent families of the community or they and their friends 
are stockholders. They have become a part of the community 
life, and it is practically impossible to remove them. An attempt 
was made several years ago to dismiss two of the teachers, who 
were said to be unsuccessful in the class-room, but they are still 
in the school. 

Date of visit: April 20 and i2i, 1910. 

The East Stroudshurg State Normal School. Recognized by 
the state in 1893. 

The last of the thirteen so-called state normal schools was 
established at East Stroudsburg in 1891 and 1892 and received 
official recognition in 1893. From nearly the first, this school 
has had trouble. It is necessary to give some historical details 
in order to discuss the conditions as they exist today. 

The state was deceived in the method of obtaining subscrip- 
tions. When the promoters asked for subscriptions, they 
discovered that the ordinary appeals were hardly sufficient. 
Finally they hit upon a new device to induce the farmers of 



32 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools ^ 

the county and the townspeople to subscribe for stock. Anyone 
taking a block of five shares, for which he paid $500, was to 
have a scholarship, which would give tuition practically free 
to one pupil for five years or to five pupils for one year. At 
that time the state normal schools charged from fifty to sixty 
dollars for tuition, so this in the end would mean that those 
having children to educate would be giving to the school only 
$250. 

When those interested in getting the state to adopt this new 
institution went before the legislature, they stated that $31,750 
had been raised. This was very probably the truth, but there 
had been sold fifty-three blocks of five shares each, which meant 
in the end that the institution, or rather the state, would be com- 
pelled to give back to the subscribers 263 free tuitions at fifty 
dollars each. This latter amount, $13,250, subtracted from the 
$31,750, would leave unincumbered only $18,500. This, it is 
asserted, was not known by the legislature which accepted the 
school. 

Soon after the school was started these scholarships began 
to assume definite value. Those who had purchased five shares 
of normal school stock and did not have children to educate 
began to sell these fifty-dollar scholarships for thirty or forty 
dollars, though in every other respect the normal school stock 
was worthless. Several years before, when subscriptions were 
being taken, the Lackawanna railroad subscribed for $2,000 of 
stock. As soon as the institution was established, a keen busi- 
ness man is said to have paid the railroad $1,000 for its shares. 
At a meeting of the board of trustees on November 7, 1898, 
five years after the state accepted the school, the board ordered 
that the scholarships be redeemed by the school at the rate now 
being paid by the school, viz. : $50 for each scholarship. At 
once this redemption began, and within a year, $4,000 in cash 
was paid to redeem scholarships. 

In the spring of 1905, certain citizens of East Stroudsburg 
demanded that an investigation be made of the management of 
the normal school. Attorney Robert K. Young, of Wellsboro, 
was appointed by Auditor General William P. Snyder to repre- 
sent the State and make an investigation. He went to East 



Present Management - ^^ 

Stroudsburg and after spending considerable time in his ex- 
amination reported as follows : 

1. Certain members of the board have sold supplies to the 
school in violation of the law of April 23, 1903. 

2. There has been jobbery in the scholarships. 

3. The trustees have paid themselves three dollars for attend- 
ing each session of the board. Their expenses have also been 
paid. Both of these are clearly against the law.^ 

4. When the school was accepted by the State, false state- 
ments were made as to the amount of money actually 
subscribed. 

5. The Yetter combine has been in control from the first. 
After Mr. Young reported to Auditor General Snyder, the 

latter withheld the regular normal school appropriations. But 
later this matter was adjusted, and the school received its regular 
quota, though it remains under the same control. 
Date of visit : March 28 and A^Tay 4, 1910. 

Conclusion. 

Such is the story of the management of the so-called state 
normal schools of Pennsylvania. The picture has not been over- 
drawn ; in fact it does not contain some of the aspects of the real 
situation. 

Fifteen years ago two prominent educators of the State fell 
into a heated argument as to which one was the author of the 
Normal School Act of 1857. Very probably to-day neither one 
would care to be held responsible for the final outcome of this 
measure. Yet the conditions as they exist to-day could not be 
found if that act had been legally followed, for, as has been 
stated elsewhere, this legislative enactment simply laid down a 
standard of work for a limited number of institutions, which 
might issue teachers' diplomas and, later, permanent licenses. 
At that time the state did not give a cent of money or promise 
to give money to any institution created under this act. Later, 
certain institutions received aid from the State both before and 
after meeting the formal requirements. Very soon the State 
realized it would be necessary to guard the expenditure of the 
hundreds of thousands of dollars it was annually giving to these 

^The legislature of 191 1 has made such expenditures legal. 



34 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

schools. Then it was discovered that the large stockholders 
would vigorously oppose every advance the State tried to make 
to direct how this money should be spent. The best evidence 
that these private corporations have often fallen into unworthy 
hands is to be found in this very opposition. If these large 
share holders were as unselfish and public-spirited as they claim 
to be, they would be willing and anxious to give these institutions 
over to the State. 

In 1872, the State appointed two trustees ; in 1907, the legisla- 
ture passed an act requiring that nine of the eighteen trustees 
should be appointed by the state superintendent. Each advance 
of the state to assume greater control of these institutions has 
met with much opposition. The protests against the act of 1907 
were particularly pronounced in several instances. At the West 
Chester Normal, the board was reorganized so that the State 
appointed nine trustees and the stockholders elected nine others. 
The next year when the litigation arose at West Chester, the 
defendants and owners of stock contended that the state superin- 
tendent did not have the power to appoint nine trustees, and 
only six were then permitted to serve on the board. 

Even if half the trustees are appointed by the state superin- 
tendent, the State's interests are scarcely better safe-guarded than 
they were when but six of the eighteen were appointed. Gener- 
ally, of course, it is expected that the state superintendent will 
appoint the state trustees from the list recommended by the 
stockholders. Seldom does he make appointments on his own 
initiative ; when he does, he must do so " upon the advice and 
consent of the governor," which is another complication, and 
of course every complication acts in favor of the small group 
of stockholders who have been in control. 

Occasionally when the state superintendent does make outside 
appointments, as he did at Mansfield last year (1909) and at 
Edinboro both this and last year (1910 and 1909), it means 
friction and loss of friendship for those who were asked to 
represent the state. Under such conditions a weak man soon 
succumbs, while a strong man discovers that he has much diffi- 
culty in accomplishing anything. Often the weak man is taken 
over into the fold of the normal school group while the strong 
man finally becomes disgusted and refuses to serve longer. In 



Present Management ' - 35 

the end, whenever one of these contests has developed, two or 
three men owning a majority of the stock have found themselves 
without opposition, and the old conditions have continued with 
but little interruption. 

It may be argued that the quarterly reports to the Auditor 
General's office and the inspection of the books every three or 
four months by a traveling auditor for the state will be suffi- 
cient to prevent irregularities. Anyone who is familiar with the 
complicated system of bookkeeping in any one of these large 
school corporations knows that such reports and such examina- 
tions are able to interrupt but not to prevent unwise use of funds. 
Certainly these reports and inspections do not put a stop to 
clique and bank control, which means that the state's money is 
frequently wasted and the good the school is able to do is 
minimized. 

Practically all the leading educators of the state, cognizant 
of the normal school management, are convinced that the present 
method of control is futile and wrong. Such men as Principals 
Phillips, Lyte, and Smith, have publicly advocated that the State 
normal schools should be under the control and direction of a 
carefully selected professional board, appointed by the governor 
or the state superintendent. The late Theodore B. Noss, of the 
California normal, who had enough faith in himself and his pro- 
fession to spend two years abroad in study, very earnestly ad- 
vocated this change. Undoubtedly the state will very soon 
adopt this policy.* 

One conclusion seems to follow inevitably from this examina- 
tion of conditions in the Pennsylvania normal schools. Either 
the system has actually resulted in strife and conflict in the 
management of the institutions, always to the detriment of their 
educational work, or a small group, frequently of no more than 
two or three or a half dozen men, have acquired control. In 
the latter case private interests have contaminated the service 
which should be rendered solely in the public interest. In one 
or two cases selfish private interest has produced open scandal, 
and in still others openly expressed public suspicion. Such con- 
ditions will always make it impossible for any school where they 
exist to train high-minded and efficient teachers. If the spirit 

* Partial provisions have been made for state ownership in the sehool 
laws of 191 1. 



36 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

of a school is morally unsound, those who fall under its in- 
fluence cannot but be touched, even if unconsciously, by its 
baneful effects. 

Let it not be forgotten also that the very worst condition ex- 
isting, or that has existed, in any of the schools, is a danger 
that threatens every school in the state. They are all alike pri- 
vate schools, largely aided by state subvention. To this policy 
of management may be traced most of the evils to be found in 
the normal schools of Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS 

During the past decade or two, entrance requirements to prac- 
tically all the professions have been steadily raised. This is 
especially true of medicine. Only a few years ago, probably not 
more than fifteen, many of the more prosperous medical schools 
admitted students from the common schools. At that time the 
great majority of the schools had a two-year course. Gradually, 
however, the entrance requirements in many of the better medi- 
cal institutions were raised and only students that had been 
graduated from a three-year or four-year high school were ad- 
mitted, and at the same time the medical course was lengthened 
to three years. To-day none has less than a four-year course, 
and many require from one to four years of college work in 
addition to the four years of high school study. The advance 
that has been made in medical education has been approached 
by the best law schools of the country; and to-day many states 
have high entrance requirements in dentistry, pharmacy, and 
even veterinary surgery. 

In certain states the requirements for entering the teaching 
profession have in a measure kept pace with those of the other 
professions, though in a great majority the standards for teach- 
ing are lamentably low and unworthy. The states that have 
done the most to make teaching truly professional are New 
York, Massachusetts, Indiana, California, and New Jersey. In 
most of these only graduates of four-year high schools are per- 
mitted to become students in the state normals ; in fact the re- 
quirements are identical with those for entrance to the univer- 
sities and the colleges of the country. With these higher re- 
quirements, which necessarily lead to better preparation on the 
part of the teachers, the salaries have been increased and the 
school term lengthened. Indications a:re that the teaching pro- 
fession will be placed on a still higher level in the near future. 
Even in the south, handicapped in its finances and burdened 

37 



38 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

with the other heavy problems, vigorous steps have been taken 
recently to raise the professional standards for the teachers in 
both the grades and the high schools. 

The condition in Pennsylvania, which is surpassed only by 
New York in wealth and population, is far from satisfactory. 
The management of practically all the Pennsylvania state 
normal schools has kept miserably low standards. Because of 
the tmlimited and indiscriminate " state aid," a premium has 
been placed upon gross numbers and the standard set in Penn- 
sylvania forty years ago among these state institutions has re- 
mained the standard up to the present time. No normal school 
principal would be continued long in office if he were not able 
to have a large enrollment in his school. The local boards of 
trustees know little about the academic and professional work; 
they do not claim to be educational experts ; but they are able 
to multiply and subtract, and they are instantly opposed to the 
adoption of any standard that will reduce the numbers and con- 
sequently the amount of " state aid." Before the spring of 1910, 
when the course of study was changed and certain very limited 
requirements agreed upon at a meeting of the normal school 
principals, little or no attention was given to the previous pre- 
paration of entering students. All were welcome, — the retarded 
pupil in the grades, the discontented pupil in the first year of 
high school, and the graduate of a four-year high school course. 
It is evident that with these indiscriminate qualifications, uni- 
form and satisfactory work was impossible, and as the stan- 
dard became lower and lower the better qualified pupils were 
not attracted. 

The law of 1866 granted " state aid " to students seventeen 
years of age and above who studied the science and art of teach- 
ing; and at the end of the normal course the state gave an 
additional reward of $50 to each graduate who promised to 
teach two years in the public schools. In 1901 the legislature 
increased the " state aid " to $1.50 a week without laying down 
a single educational qualification. Many evils have followed in 
the wake of this age requirement. Since their establishment, 
practically every normal school has had a preparatory or sub- 
junior class to which are admitted boys and girls who often are 
not able to keep pace with their classmates in the common 
schools or high schools. These individuals are attracted to the 



The Entrance Requirements 39 

normals in order to take the special courses offered or to qualify 
themselves in the least possible time and with the least possible 
effort to receive a permanent certificate to teach in the public 
schools. Regardless of the advancement these pupils make, as 
soon as they reach the age of seventeen they are enrolled in the 
" Methods " class so that the school may receive $1.50 a week 
for their professional preparation. Not all of these individuals 
keep their promise of teaching. Probably the state loses less 
if they do not ; but whether they do or not, the dullards and the 
incompetents receive a permanent license and enter into com- 
petition with the brightest young men and women in the state. 

The incompetents can find no other haven so comfortable and 
lucrative, and they are able and willing to work for less money 
than those who see other avenues where competition is more 
severe and rewards are greater. Eventually, this system dis- 
courages and drives out the more capable ones ; and the so-called 
teacher's profession is left largely in the hands of people lacking 
in scholarship and initiative. The most competent teachers are 
not sufficiently protected by the minimum salary laws of the 
state. 

It must not be inferred that a majority of the students 
in the normal schools are not earnest and energetic; such is not 
the case. A large number of them are studious and capable, 
though very deficient in academic preparation. Unfortunately, 
these persons remain in the profession only a short time since 
they are compelled to stand upon the economic level established 
by the incompetent class turned out by these institutions. 

This indiscriminate giving of state money to privately con- 
trolled normal schools offers a temptation for gain, and the prin- 
cipals have been forced into a competition for mere numbers. 
Under such conditions it is not surprising that these educators 
have been unable to agree upon any entrance requirements. This 
has led to an intolerable condition, which can be described in 
the words of a former principal who said that a Pennsylvania 
normal school is " an institution for teaching almost any body 
almost any thing." This statement is quoted from the late Theo- 
dore B. Noss, of the California normal school, who was plead- 
ing for higher entrance requirements and more co-operation be- 
tween the normal schools and high schools of Pennsylvania. 

Passages will be quoted from both old and new catalogues 



40 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

of the Pennsylvania normal schools to prove that these institu- 
tions have had no entrance requirements worthy of the name. 
A number of the prominent educators of Pennsylvania will be 
quoted to show that they realize that the conditions are deplor- 
able and that a radical reform is necessary. 

In 1886, the West Chester normal school catalogue contains 
this statement : " Pupils will be allowed to enter the regular 
course at any point for which they are actually fitted. They 
may enter at any time during the session, and will be charged 
only from date of entrance." 

Practically the same statement can be found in the Shippens- 
burg catalogue from 1887 to 1896, Between 1890 and 1897 the 
Lock Haven catalogues announce that " Students can enter at 
any time and find profitable work. But it is always better to be 
present at the opening of the term. 

" No examination is required in order to be admitted to the 
Junior class. Applicants for admission will be assigned to such 
classes as are suited to their degree of advancement." 

The Millersville catalogues from 1890 to 1894 state that 
" Students will be admitted to the school at any time," with the 
additional statement that " When students enter school they will 
be assigned to the class in which their qualifications entitle them 
to be placed." 

The California normal as late as 1896- 1897 announced that a 
student was " prepared to enter here " after having had " the 
usual course in the common schools at home." It also advises 
the student to come at once if he desires to save " both time and 
money." In 1900 the East Stroudsburg catalogue has this 
rather flexible entrance requirement : " Those who are fairly 
well advanced in the English branches, by entering the begin- 
ning of the Fall term, can complete the work of the Junior year 
in three terms. . . . On entering, the applicant is placed 
in such class or classes as his attainment and ability warrant." 

Practically every one of the Pennsylvania normal schools ad- 
mits students to the various classes almost at any time during 
the year. The Bloomsburg catalogue of 1906-1907 states that 
" Students in nearly all subjects can be accommodated, even in 
the middle of the term." 

All the announcements for 1908-1909 and 1909-1910 indicate 



The Entrance Requirements 41 

that the entrance requirements have not been raised. A student 
might enter any normal school from the grades or the common 
schools, and be graduated after three years of work. If the 
standards of New York and Massachusetts were strictly applied 
to him upon graduation, he would not yet be able to enter a 
state normal in either of these states until he had studied for a 
year in a first class high school. 

The Lock Haven catalogue for 1908-1909 states that " a good 
High School course or its equivalent will admit to the Junior 
class." In January, 1910, two students from the Sophomore 
class of the Lock Haven High School were admitted upon ex- 
amination to the Junior year without condition. At the end of 
two years these individuals (two girls) will receive state di- 
plomas or licenses at the time their former classmates are gradu- 
ating from the local high school. Pupils from the eighth grade 
at Lock Haven have been admitted without examination to the 
sub- junior class. This enables them to become teachers in four 
years. The situation here is not worse than in many of the other 
state institutions. 

A former principal states that " no examinations worthy of 
the name have ever been given to students applying for entrance 
to any normal school of the state. Boys of eleven, and girls 
even younger are admitted to the various classes to the detri- 
ment of the standard of the schools. These individuals are not 
qualified by mental development or previous preparation to enter 
the classes with young men and women who are really fitted for 
professional work." The present director of the model school 
of one of the normal schools asserts that " Most of these insti- 
tutions have fallen into the snare of allowing practically any- 
body to enter the Junior year ; and once entered, it is difficult to 
keep unfit ones from graduating." One of the most competent 
teachers in another school states that " The preparation of our 
students upon entering is much varied. A few come well pre- 
pared; others are very poorly prepared. It has been customary 
in the past to accept marks from schools in the districts — High 
Schools so named — but for several years now we give them an 
examination, a very easy test, and if they show any signs of 
knowledge we pass them on. 

" Now this matter of credits is a most difficult problem. You 



42 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

know the condition of our high schools. There are six or eight 
first rate ones in our district. Students from these are fairly 
well prepared, but the difficulty is to know where to draw the 
line. The principals of the smaller schools, which are not high 
schools in any real sense, say, ' If you do not accept our marks, 
we will send our graduates to schools that do,' and they keep 
their word. The marks we get are no index at all of the pupils' 
ability. The grades presented to us range from 90 per cent to 
100 per cent. I have just examined a dozen students in General 
History. The lowest grade presented to me was 90 per cent, 
the highest 99 per cent. These students had this work in class 
last year. Here are the questions I gave them for the entrance 
examination : 

1. Tell what you can about the Peloponnesian war. 

2. Point out differences in character between the Athenians 
and the Spartans. 

3. What were the causes and results of the War of the 
Roses ? 

4. What were the following: 

(a) The Renaissance. 

(b) The German Reformation. 

(c) The Hundred Years' War. 

(d) The Peace of Westphalia. 

" If I had graded the papers of these students according to the 
standards I used to follow in high school, their marks would 
have ranged between 30 per cent and 70 per cent. As it was I 
passed them all. You notice that the character of the questions 
is quite different from that of the questions I would give in a 
regular examination ; these are general and strike only the 
mountain peaks. 

" The preparation of our students in the common school 
branches is deplorable. These individuals come largely from 
country schools, but even those from the graded schools are 
wretchedly prepared. They have no accurate knowledge, and 
their examinations show a miserable hodge-podge. After they 
come to us, our patchy course of study — 24 weeks for General 
History — makes the situation still more miserable. We have 
been told that this century is a time of rapid transit, but our 



The Entrance Requirements 43 

course of study can hardly be excelled in speed except by the 
new course which in many respects is still worse." 

The above quotations indicate something of the standards that 
have been employed by all the normal schools. With the adop- 
tion of this new course of study in the spring of 1910, the prin- 
cipals laid down the first uniform entrance requirements that 
the Pennsylvania normal schools have ever agreed upon in the 
fifty years of their existence. The standard states that " Stu- 
dents admitted to the First Year shall have a fair knowledge of 
Arithmetic, Reading, Orthography, Penmanship, United States 
History, Geography, Grammar, Physiology, Civics, and the Ele- 
ments of Algebra to Quadratics. Test by Faculty." The 
fact that this requirement has been heralded as an improvement, 
over the old order where each institution set its own standards 
seems to justify the severe criticisms that have been made by 
educators in and out of the state. 

The entrance requirements now agreed upon for the Penn- 
sylvania normal schools are no higher than those for admittance 
to a good New York high school. All the work upon which the 
entering students will be examined, with the exception of Ele- 
mentary Algebra, is distinctly of common school grade and no 
statement is made to the effect that the pupils must be graduated 
from the common schools. It is not possible to say that the 
standard has been raised; the matter still rests largely in the 
hands of each principal. The Preparatory or Sub-Junior class 
will still be a ready receptacle for all the educational misfits that 
may apply for admittance from the sixth or seventh grade, and 
the same laxity in entrance requirements will probably continue 
in the future. Practically no student, regardless of his age or 
his preparation, has ever been refused admittance to any normal 
school in the state. There are few, very few, exceptions to this 
sweeping statement. 

In fact, even if this entrance requirement agreed upon in 1910 
is enforced, the standard is low and reward in time saved is 
offered to those coming directly from the country or graded 
schools. The pupils may be conditioned in Algebra and one of 
the elementary branches, but they still have considerably the ad- 
vantage of pupils from high schools. A reward of two years 
is given to those who do not spend a single day in the local high 



44 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



school but enter at once one of the state normals. Here are the 
rules laid down by the principals for admitting pupils from the 
secondary schools of the state : 

" Resolved that properly certified graduates of approved 
Pennsylvania High Schools of the first grade and city High 
Schools [four years in length] as listed by the Department of 
Public Instruction, be recommended to the State Board of Ex- 
aminers for entrance to the third year of the Four Years' 
Course of the State Normal Schools without examination by the 
Faculty, and be conditioned in the branches that have not been 
satisfactorily completed by such students. 

" Resolved that properly certified graduates of approved 
Pennsylvania High Schools of the second grade [three years in 
length] be recommended to the State Board of Examiners for 
entrance to the second year of the Four Years' Course of the 
State Normal Schools without examination by the faculty, and 
be conditioned in the branches that have not been satisfactorily 
completed by such students. 

" Resolved that properly certified graduates of approved 
Pennsylvania High Schools of the third grade [two years in 
length] be admitted to the first year of the Four Years' Course 
of the State Normal Schools without examination, and be con- 
ditioned in the branches that have not been satisfactorily com- 
pleted by such students." 

The following table will show that the entrance requirements 
are distinctly in favor of the pupil from the common schools : 



TABLE 1 



Years in the 

Common 

School 


Years in 
High 
School 


Years in 
Normal 
School 


Total 
Preparation 

for 
permanent 
certificate 


8 years 
8 years 
8 years 
8 years 




2 
3 
4 


4 

4 
3 
2 


12 years 
14 years 
14 years 
14 years 



In other words the new course of study is setting a pre- 
mium upon inefficient and poor preparation and is permitting 
and even encouraging the state normals to continue their compe- 



The Entrance Requirements 45 

tition against the public high schools. The wording of the above 
resolutions indicates that the four-year high school graduate 
will be conditioned in both School Management and School Law 
and General Methods, so that besides losing two years of time, 
he is compelled to do additional work during the third and 
fourth years of the normal course. 

Because of the adoption of the four-year curriculum, which 
requires only a common school preparation, these low standards 
will be retained. Frequently, the normal school principals are 
not to blame for this condition of affairs. Back of them stand 
the local boards of trustees who would instantly resent any ac- 
tion that would tend to reduce the attendance. The succeeding 
chapter will show how seriously the low entrance requirements 
affect the curriculum of the normal schools, and how they force 
these institutions to attempt impossible tasks. 



CHAPTER V 

THE CURRICULUM 

The law of 1857, dividing the state of Pennsylvania into 
twelve normal school districts (later thirteen), provided that the 
course of study for the state normal schools should be agreed 
upon by a majority of the normal school principals and ap- 
proved by the state superintendent. Almost without exception 
the normal schools had developed from private academies. The 
principals of these schools agreed upon three regular courses, 
two of which were wholly academic, and the other, known as 
the " Elementary Course," and designed for those who expected 
to teach in the common schools, gave but little attention to pro- 
fessional instruction. This was quite natural, but none the less 
unfortunate, since it resulted in an inauguration of the work 
of the normal schools along cultural, rather than professional 
lines. 

The ultimate result has been that professional studies 
have been forced to gain admission, whenever admission could 
be gained at all, by crowding into an already full course. From 
the standpoint of educational efficiency, the greatest defect of 
the Pennsylvania normal schools is their overcrowded cur- 
riculum. Their work is a jumble of attempts to do what be- 
longs to the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades of the common 
schools, to the high schools, to the colleges, and to schools for 
the professional training of teachers. Even at the present day 
music is a special study in every one of the thirteen schools, and 
most of them have a formidable array of extras besides, none 
of which have any bearing upon professional training of teach- 
ers, though they are sometimes combined with a nominal at- 
tendance upon " methods " lectures, thus making those who are 
enrolled in them eligible for state aid. 

As the original " Elementary Course " at Millersville is the 
one from which the later normal courses have been evolved, it 

46 



The Curriculum 47 

is best to give it in detail. This course extended only two years 
above the work of the common schools. Part of the academic 
subjects were continuations of the common school branches, 
such as arithmetic (mental and written), penmanship, reading, 
grammar, and history of the United States. The majority were 
distinctly high school in character, such as Natural Philosophy, 
Botany, Rhetoric, Geometry and Plane Trigonometry. One 
hour a day for a year was devoted to the Theory of Teaching 
and an hour a day for a half year to Practice Teaching in tfie 
Model School. 

This Elementary Course is here given : 

First Term 
Orthography and Etymology 
Reading and Elocution 
Writing and Drawing 
Geography 
Mental Arithmetic 
Written Arithmetic 
Grammar 
Vocal Music 

Second Term 
Reading and Elocution 
Writing and Drawing 
Physical Geography 
Higher Grammar 
Elements of Algebra 
Physiology 
Theory of Teaching 
Vocal Music 

Third Term 
History of the United States 
Algebra 

Elements of Natural Philosophy 
Rhetoric 

Geometry (five books) 
Theory of Teaching 
Bookkeeping 

Fourth Term 

Geometry Completed and Plane Trigonometry 
Elements of Chemistry 
Botany or Zoology 
Practice Teaching 

This course was also adopted at Edinboro in 1861 when that 
institution was officially recognized. Probably no change was 
made in it until 1866 when the state legislature passed an act, 



48 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

giving aid to all students over seventeen years of age who signi- 
fied their intention of teaching in the common schools of the 
state and who " receive regular instruction in the science and 
art of teaching in a special class devoted to that object for the 
whole time such an allowance is drawn." 

In 1870, a few changes were made in the curriculum of the 
five state normal schools then in existence. The theory of 
teaching was given an hour a day for a year and a half, and 
this was followed by an hour a day for a half year of practice 
teaching. The only other important change in the curriculum 
was made by reducing the time devoted to mathematics : only 
part of the work of solid geometry was presented and plane 
trigonometry was entirely omitted. This course of study re- 
mained in operation until 1880. 

In this year, several important changes were made. Less time, 
it would seem, was devoted to the common school branches, for 
both Grammar and Etymology were dropped out, and Mental 
and Written Arithmetic were also omitted. At this meeting the 
principals again reduced the time given to higher mathematics, 
and the work in solid geometry was dropped. In place of these 
subjects, Latin was introduced for the first time, though for but 
one year, the work being confined to the study of grammar and 
the completion of the first book of Caesar. Some attention was 
also given to the English classics, but the main reason for chang- 
ing the program at this time was to make room for two pro- 
fessional subjects — School Economy and Mental Philosophy. 

Seven years later, in 1887, at another meeting of the normal 
school principals and the state superintendent, more Latin was 
required though the work was still confined to grammar and 
Caesar. The most important change made at this time was in 
the additional emphasis that was given to the theory of teach- 
ing. Though the course had not yet been extended to three 
years, the work in the theory of teaching had been subdivided 
so that attention was given to school management, methods, and 
psychology; and in addition to these, a short course in the his- 
tory of education was required. 



The Curriculum . 49 

In 1894, at the end of another seven-year period, two meet- 
ings of the normal school principals were called to revise the 
course of study. At the first meeting several additions were 
made. Arithmetic and English Grammar, which were in the 
course of study in 1859, were reintroduced; additional work 
was prescribed in Caesar; and the new subjects, Manual Train- 
ing and General History, were added. During this same year, 
but at a later meeting, the curriculum was radically changed by 
offering a third year which all students were recommended to 
take, though not compelled to do so. 

The work of the optional year was divided between high 
school and professional subjects. Solid geometry, plane and 
analytical trigonometry and surveying were prescribed, and short 
courses were given in chemistry, zoology, and geology. Special 
work was also offered in English and American literature. 
Three books of both Caesar and Virgil, and three orations of 
Cicero were added to the work in Latin prescribed for the 
elementary course. The pedagogical instruction included psy- 
chology, moral science, school supervision, philosophy of educa- 
tion, and methods of teaching. 

The addition of this optional year in 1894 for regular normal 
school students indicates that the normal school principals were 
not satisfied with the preparation they had been giving their 
students ; and finally, in 1900, they agreed upon a compulsory 
three-year course for graduation, which consisted of the regular 
elementary course of two years with the addition of the former 
optional year. At the same time work in Greek, German, and 
French, was introduced, and students were permitted to substi- 
tute language work for certain courses in science or mathe- 
matics ; but in most of the normal schools few elected French or 
Greek and the language work was therefore largely confined to 
German and Latin. This course of study, adopted in 1900, was 
divided into the three years, called Junior, Middle, and Senior, 
and was continued for ten years by the thirteen normal schools. 
The following division by years and subjects is taken from the 
catalogue of the Indiana, Pennsylvania, Normal School : 



so 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



OLD COURSE 
First Year 

Mathematics (Algebra, Arithmetic) 260 45 minute periods 

Latin 200 

Pedagogics (School management) 137^ 

Music 48 

Drawing 112 

United States History and Civics 140 

Physiology 60 

Bookkeeping 75 

Geography 65 

Physical Culture 80 

1177-i 
Second Year 

Mathematics (Plane Geometry) 140 

English (Rhetoric, Composition, Elocution) 130 

Botany 60 

Zoology 60 

History (General) 125 

Latin (Caesar) 200 

Pedagogics (Psychology, Methods) 200 

Manual Training 75 

Chemistry 140 

Physical Culture 80 

1210 
Third Year 

Pedagogics (Methods, Hist, of Ed., Teaching) 270 

Latin (Cicero, Virgil) 200 

English (Lit. and Classics, review of grammar) 200 

Mathematics (So. Geom., Trig., Surv., review arith.) 260 

Physics 140 

Geology 60 

Physical Culture 80 

1210 

Very shortly after the adoption of the three-year course of 
study in 1900, several of the normal school principals advocated 
radical changes. The objections by these educators were nu- 
merous enough, but somewhat conflicting: some insisted that the 
course of study should be reduced to two years in length, and 
be confined entirely to professional and semi-professional 
studies; others contended that the course should be lengthened 
in order to give opportunity for more thorough work. Of the 
remaining principals two or three were indifferent, while one 
or two were defenders of the course as it stood. 

In writing to the State Superintendent in 1907, one normal 
school principal stated " that the course of study is too exten- 
sive to make possible the thorough drill in the fundamental 



The Curriculum 5 1 

studies that is so necessary to the success as a teacher of the 
common schools." This indicates that at least one principal 
favored a smaller number of academic studies and more atten- 
tion to review and drill work in the common school subjects. 
At the same time Principal Lyte of Millersville made the asser- 
tion that " some Normal Schools are obstacles in the way of es- 
tablishing high schools, because they themselves attempt to do 
work of second or third grade high schools and thus prevent 
the establishment of high schools." Principal Kemp of the East 
Stroudsburg normal school, in his report to the state superinten- 
dent in 1909, stated that " the academic work in the last two 
years is entirely too heavy, and crowds out much needed profes- 
sional work. A number of the studies in the middle and senior 
years are nothing more than high school studies that should be 
well taken care of before the middle year is reached. 
The junior year is no better than the last year in a good gram- 
mar school and it should really be at least equal to. the third 
year in a good high school." Doctor Theodore B. Noss, the 
late principal of the California normal school, also contended 
that the course of study should be modified, giving less attention 
to high school subjects and much more attention to the profes- 
sional preparation of teachers. Finally in the spring of 1910, 
after two or three protracted and rather heated conferences, a 
four-year course was agreed upon. It is given here with prefa- 
tory explanations as made out by the principals at their final 
conference : 

" This course is based on the ' unit ' plan as proposed by the 
Carnegie Foundation. 

"A unit represents a year's study in any subject in a secon- 
dary school constituting approximately a quarter of a full year's 
work. 

" This statement is designed to afford a standard of measure- 
ment for the work done in secondary schools. It takes the four- 
year High School Course as a basis and assumes that the length 
of the school year is from thirty-six to forty weeks, that a 
period is from forty to sixty minutes in length and that the 
study is pursued for four or five periods a week; but, under 
ordinary circumstances, a satisfactory year's work in any sub- 



52 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



ject cannot be accomplished in less than one hundred and twenty 
sixty-minute hours or their equivalent. Schools organized on a 
different basis can nevertheless estimate their work in terms of 
this unit. 

" Students admitted to the First Year shall have a fair knowl- 
edge of Arithmetic, Reading, Orthography, Penmanship, United 
States History, Geography, Grammar, Physiology, Civics, and 
the Elements of Algebra to Quadratics. Test by Faculty." 



45 minute periods 



First Year 

Algebra 160 

Latin 160 

School Management and School Law 160 

Orthography 40 

Reading and Public Speaking 50 

Ancient and Mediaeval History 100 

Physical Geography 50 

Arithmetic 100 

Grammar , . . 160 

Vocal Music 50 

Physical Training 80 

^lanual Training or Domestic Science 50 

1160 
Second Year 

Plane Geometry 160 " " 

Rhetoric, Composition and Classics 160 " " 

Botany 100 " " 

Zoology 50 

Bookkeeping 50 " " 

Modern History and English History 100 " " 

Caesar (Four Books) 160 " " 

General Methods 160 " " 

Drawing 100 " " 

Physical Training SO " " 

Manual Training or Domestic Science 50 " " 

1170 
Third Year 

Psychology and Observation 160 " " 

Cicero or German or French 160 " " 

Literature, English and American 100 " " 

History, U. S. and Civics 80 " " 

Geography 80 " " 

Physiology and School Sanitation 80 " " 

Solid Geometry and Trigonometry 160 " " 

Methods in History and Geography 100 " " 

Physics 160 

Physical Training 80 " 

1160 
Substitutions Offered: History of Arts and Sciences, French or German 
for Cicero. French, German, or Geology and Astronomy for Solid Geometry 
and Trigonometry. 



The Curriculum <)^ 

Fourth Year 

Practice Teaching 160 45 minute periods 

Observation or Plan Work, Practice must be at least 100 20 

History of Education 100 45 

Agriculture and Nature Study 160 

Arithmetic 50 

Grammar 50 

Methods in Arithmetic and Grammar 100 

Virgil (Six Books), German or French 160 

Pubhc Speaking 50 

Chemistry 160 

Drawing 50 

Manual Training or Domestic Science 50 

Physical Training 80 

1110 

Substitutions Offered: French, German, (Ethics, Logic and Sociology), 
or, (Philosophy of Education and Surveying) for Virgil. Note — Surveying 
may take the place of either Ethics, Logic or Sociology. 

Of the 3597 hours given under the three-year course, 2397 
were devoted to what can rightly be called high school subjects, 
^iid 353 to common school branches. Exclusive of physical 
training, this leaves 607^ hours for professional studies, or 
18^ per cent of the entire time. The revised course. has 2750 
hours for high school subjects and 540 for common school 
branches, with 990 left for professional study, or 23 per cent of 
the entire time. 

These figures lead to the conclusion that the new course of 
study is not an improvement over the old one. In fact, no 
radical change has been made; the additional year has simply 
proportionately increased the time devoted to each phase of the 
work: 3825^ hours to the professional side; 353 to high school 
subjects, and 187 to the common school branches. In the old 
curriculum the work, exclusive of the time for physical train- 
ing, required 27.97 recitations per week or 5^ per day. Little 
improvement has been made in the new four-year course since 
it requires 26.75 recitations per week or 5^/^ per day. 

One of the weaknesses of the curriculum is a result of the 
limited time and emphasis given to the subject of English com- 
position and literature. Practically one-third of this entire time 
is devoted to grammar and 40 periods are assigned to spelling. 
This leaves not more than 360 periods to the English work as 
it is given in a modern high school. Most of these precious 360 
recitations are given to the discussion of two or three classics 



54 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

and to the lives of noted authors. Oral and written composi- 
tion receive very little attention. 

The English teacher has all he can do to prepare for six or 
seven recitation periods a day; he has left neither energy nor 
tirrie to correct essays, and the students are too busy going from 
one class to another to devote much time to any one study. 

During any year of a first-class high school the pupils write 
more essays than do the normal students in three or four years. 
The oral composition work is generally left in the hands of the 
Elocution teacher, who is busy with a small group, rehearsing 
for a play or other public performance. As a consequence, the 
students often show skill in analysing sentences, although they 
are not able to write or speak their native language with cor- 
rectness and ease. They hear much about the " theme " of a 
selection, but at the end of the normal course they have little or 
no appreciation of the best literature. When the normal school 
students go out to teach in the grammar grades and the smaller 
high schools of the state, it is very evident that the English 
work, the core of the curriculum, cannot be well taught. As a 
consequence, each succeeding school generation shows to what 
an alarming extent a crowded normal school curriculum can di- 
rectly injure the common schools of the state. 

The number of hours devoted to academic work in the Penn- 
sylvania normal schools and in the first class high schools is prac- 
tically the same. In the former case the total number of hours 
given to academic study (high school and common school) is 
3290, while in the latter all of the 3458 hours are given to the 
high school studies. The difference of 168 hours is insignificant. 
This similarity is made still more evident by comparing the 
number of recitations per week or day required in each instance. 
The high school course requires less than 23 per week or 4.55 
per day, while the academic side of the normal school cur- 
riculum requires 20.5 hours per week or 4.1 per day. If the 
academic work of the Pennsylvania normal schools is well done, 
is there any room for the 990 additional hours required for 
professional study? 



CHAPTER VI 

ADVERTISING METHODS AND SPECIAL COURSES 

An investigation of the advertising methods employed by prac- 
tically all the Pennsylvania normal schools shows at once the 
principal reason why the entrance requirements are very low 
and why the curriculum is crowded and unsatisfactory. The 
creation of the many special courses of study indicates to what 
extent the demand for gross numbers has distorted the aim of 
these professional schools. The effect of this desire for students 
has been far-reaching and it will not cease until the state takes 
the control of its normal schools out of the hands of private 
corporations and of men who are indifferent to the purpose for 
which these institutions were established. 

Mention has already been made of the prevalence of wholly 
unprofessional " special studies," and of the indefensible custom 
of combining such studies with " methods " classes in order to 
make students of music, or bookkeeping, or photography eligible 
for state aid. 

Many students enrolled in these special courses do not expect 
to teach. A few, refusing to accept " state aid " under false pre- 
tenses, pay their own tuition, including additional fees. How- 
ever, many others do not hesitate to let the state pay sixty dollars 
a year for their education in stenography, bookkeeping, music, 
art and oratory. The " state aid " is frequently more than 
enough to pay the tuition for many of these special courses. If 
it is not, the school makes a deduction to those pupils who take 
" Methods " and ask for " State aid " ; in such an event, the 
student pays less than he would otherwise and the school re- 
ceives considerably more. 

Because of the profit derived from these special courses, it 
is easily understood why a majority of the Pennsylvania state 
normal schools have become institutions " for teaching almost 
anybody almost anything." 

Certain of these institutions employ as teachers men who are 

55 



56 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

in demand in the county institutes of the state, and who have 
consequently great influence in attracting young men and women 
to their schools. Such lecturers are permitted to leave the nor- 
mals for an afternoon or evening address two or three times a 
week, and even to spend as much as ten or twelve weeks in 
county institutes, though these are held during the school term. 
The class work of these men, which is of much greater im- 
portance, necessarily suffers, but the attendance in the normal 
schools is increased by this plan of advertising. 

A great deal of attention is given to athletics, since these 
schools have discovered, as did the colleges twenty years ago, 
that it increases the attendance to have a winning foot-ball or 
base-ball team. Several of the state normals have splendid gym- 
nasiums while their libraries are small and thoroughly 
inadequate and their model schools are poorly furnished and 
unsatisfactory. Shippensburg, for instance, has both a new gym- 
nasium and athletic field with a grand-stand, while its training 
school is in cramped and unsatisfactory quarters, and its library 
is very small. At Edinboro, the science building is wholly inade- 
quate, with miserable equipment, but the school has both an 
athletic field and an attractive gymnasium. The library at 
Lock Haven, although it has been improved and enlarged in the 
past two years, is still lacking in space and volumes. The 
gymnasium, however, is one of the features of the school. Kutz- 
town has one of the finest gymnasiums in the State, but its 
library room, which contains few modern books, is very small 
and it has no experienced librarian to direct the students in their 
readings. 

In the central and western parts of the State, the normal 
schools send out " educational runners " to increase the enroll- 
ment. These agents go from town to town and village to village, 
calling upon the older pupils in the country schools and the boys 
and girls in the eighth grade and in the first year of high school. 
Often the competition becomes so heated that charges for board 
and room are reduced. The agent, however, has generally dis- 
covered that his strongest appeal to the parents is to show them 
that their son or daughter can save a year's time in obtaining 
a permanent teacher's certificate by attending the school he is 
advertising ; while his strongest appeal to the prospective pupils 



Advertising Methods and Special Courses 57 

is to emphasize the attractions of the student life, — the athletic 
events, the social affairs, the freedom granted to all, and a mini- 
mum of distasteful and difficult work. 

The condition in the eastern part of the State is similar though 
the advertising methods are somewhat different. In some re- 
spects, the contest is fiercer since the schools in the east are more 
closely located. The alumni of each normal are called upon to 
send students to the school, and occasionally the campaigning 
methods require the head of the normal school to give his per- 
sonal attention to prospective students. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE STATE BOARD EXAAHNATIONS 

For many years the State Board Examinations held at the 
Pennsylvania normal schools at the end of each academic year 
have failed in their purpose. Few educators in the state will 
defend them, and many school men do not hesitate to say that 
they are not only useless, but also dangerous, since they encour- 
age poor work and permit an evasion of the spirit of the law 
relating to the certification of teachers. 

As early as 1859 the law provided for the examination of 
those students who were recommended for graduation by " the 
whole faculty ", it required that this examination be conducted 
by not less than three principals (" of whom the principal of 
the school whose students are to be examined shall be one ") 
and stipulated that the Superintendent of Common Schools be 
present in person. Later these requirements were changed to 
a certain extent; the number of principals on the board was 
reduced to two, and the Superintendent was permitted to send a 
deputy, and to enlarge the board by the appointment of from 
two to six city, county, borough or township superintendents. 
Up to 1901, these examinations were given only to the graduating 
classes, but at that time the principals, with the consent of the 
State Superintendent, agreed that all the students in the regular 
classes should come under this jurisdiction and be examined by 
the boards not only for graduation but also for promotion to a 
higher class. As a consequence, these state board examinations 
afifect most of the students in the regular classes, and much of 
the burden of maintaining standards of scholarship is shifted 
upon these few men who come to the institutions at the end of 
the academic year to remain but two or three days. In the past 
as few as four or five men have been in charge of an examina- 
tion, and in two or three days these men were supposed to grade 
four or five thousand papers, and examine hundreds of note- 

58 



The State Board Examinations 59 

books, — a physical impossibility. The number of examiners has 
recently been increased and the time somewhat extended, but the 
situation is still far from satisfactory. 

Much might be said concerning the educational qualifications 
and the experience of some of the men that are chosen for this 
important duty, but that is unnecessary since the limited time 
and the enormous task make it impossible for the most competent 
and conscientious to do their work well. In fact, these examina- 
tions enable an ambitious school principal to coerce his faculty 
into approving many students that should not be passed under 
any circumstances. As a result, these persons often slip through 
because of the overwork or carelessness of an examiner, and 
thereby the educational standard of the state is seriously 
affected. 

To' show just how much of a farce these examinations are 
it is sufficient to know that one normal school principal claims 
that no student in his school has failed in a state board examina- 
tion in twenty-three years. Another principal has a clear record 
for twenty years. Such information is given a prominent place 
in the chapel talks, in the official letters written to prospective 
students, and in the various publications sent out to advertise the 
institution. Since the principal whose students are being exam- 
ined is an official member of the board, it is very easy for him to 
save many who otherwise would be failed, and occasion- 
ally he does not hesitate to protest most vigorously against 
conditioning or failing a single one of his students. In all fair- 
nesS;, however, it should be stated that two or three of the 
Pennsylvania normal school principals do^ not ask their faculties 
to endorse doubtful students ; neither do they try to save the 
record of the school by begging an examiner to withdraw his 
objections to one of their students, who has done poorly in the 
final test. Principal Rothermel, of the Kutztown normal school, 
is one of the men who assume this attitude. But even then this 
system is undesirable since it tends to lessen and divide responsi- 
bility rather than increase and concentrate it; and seldom or 
never does it really assist a school to maintain a reasonably high 
standard of scholarship. 

The following description by a prominent educator of the 
state, who is at present a normal school teacher, will indicate the 



6o Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

attitude and opinion of the majority of Pennsylvania educators 
toward these examinations : 

" The state board examinations are a farce to some extent. 
Too much credit is given to the school record of applicants for 
state diplomas. Because these examinations are superficial in so 
many cases, the principal coerces his faculty to pass students 
who are not quite prepared. He believes the student will get 
the benefit of the doubt and such is the case. As a consequence 
there is no check by either the faculty or the examining board. 
The attitude of this principal is not dififerent from that of a 
majority of the heads of the normal schools of the state. The 
moral effect upon the students and their work is very bad since 
they know the principal will step in at the end and induce his 
faculty to recommend many individuals who do not deserve the 
state diploma." 

Another account written by an efficient educator it is im- 
possible to give in full. It is a complete description of what 
occurred during the three days a board was in session at one 
of the normal schools. However, the following extracts can 
be given without revealing his identity: 

" We arrived at ... . late Monday evening, and Tuesday 
afternoon went out to the normal school and held a few exam- 
inations. That night two of us sat up together until three o'clock 
correcting papers. Wednesday we examined all day and 
Wednesday night we sat up until five o'clock correcting papers. 
Thursday morning I held my last examination which was 
in . . . . , getting through a little before twelve o'clock. At 
twelve the examiners met, and I did not have time to look over 
more than six or eight of the sixty papers written that morning. 

" The other examiner, who had spent as much time as I had 
in trying to go over carefully the papers of the students, found 
as many as fifty papers that showed a miserable lack of scholar- 
ship. In my examination of the papers, I found practically the 
same persons to have failed. Twenty of these were seniors 
who expected to receive in a few days a diploma which would 
be changed in two years to a life certificate. Because of the 
poor spelling, the miserable English, and the mis-statement of 
facts not a single one of these twenty should have been passed. 
This other examiner, who had conscientiously read the papers, 
agreed with me that these persons should not be granted diplomas 
under any circumstances. We asked for the class records of 
these students ; they were produced, showing that the student:; 
had in the main done poor work in school. But after some 
wrangling among the members of the board which ended finally 



The State Board Examinations 6i 

with a fervent appeal by the principal who explained that he 
had never in his life protested against the passing of students 
in other normal schools where he had been on the examining 
board, we were practically forced to give up, and this we did 
as gracefully as we could. As a consequence, no other examiner 
protested against promoting or graduating a single student in 
that school. Yet I am sure that all the examiners believed that 
no injustice would have been done if 25%' of the students 
recommended by the faculty of that school had been failed. 

" This is not an exceptional case. I have been a member of 
other boards, and what occurred in this school has seemingly 
occurred all too frequently in every other Pennsylvania normal 
school. 

" Sometimes the examiners do not perform their duties at all. 
I have known one to play tennis during the examination days 
all the while; and I have heard of others that gave themselves 
up to the social group they met at the hotel or in a lodge. 

" Frequently the questions are highly impractical. In a Latin 
examination, I have known the longest and most intricate indirect 
discourse to be offered first-year students out of its context ; 
or vocabularies to be offered from texts which the students never 
saw. Even then the students were passed ; the examiner prob- 
ably did not know that the questions he put showed clearly to all 
school men that he was incompetent to grade Latin papers. Is 
it any wonder that the state board examinations have been con- 
sidered a mere form ? " 

From the foregoing it is very clear that the influence of the 
lay boards of control is as unfortunate in the state examinations 
as in other departments of normal school activities. If a princi- 
pal attempted to raise his standard of scholarship for promotion 
and graduation, he would find that many of his weaker students 
would leave and go to another institution where the former low 
standard is maintained; and of course as a result, the principal 
would have to report to his board that the attendance had 
fallen off. If he were perfectly frank with his trustees and ex- 
plained the reason for this, he would soon discover that his 
official life was in jeopardy, his salary cut, and his faculty re- 
duced. The lay board knows little about educational standards, 
but it knows a good deal about the difficulty of maintaining an 
unprofitable plant. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE STUDENT BODY 

The future of the pubHc schools of Pennsylvania has de- 
pended and will continue to depend to a large extent upon the 
product of the state normal schools. Most educational reforms 
come from above : the college stimulates the work of the high 
school, and the high school, generally speaking, evaluates and 
strengthens the work of the common schools. The Pennsyl- 
vania state normal schools are more numerous than those of 
any other state; they have, therefore, occupied in a small mea- 
sure the place of a state university in directing and modifying 
the entire system of schools, both secondary and elementary. In 
fact they have been looked upon as the standardizing force in 
the educational field. 

The teaching profession must require thorough preparation of 
its members if it is to rank with medicine, engineering, dentistry 
and the other professions which demand for entrance many 
years of academic and professional study. 

A careful examination has been made of the eighty-five hun- 
dred students enrolled during the year 1909-1910 in the thirteen 
Pennsylvania state normal schools. Of these, 3950 were ques- 
tioned directly in their classrooms, and the facts thus obtained 
have been supplemented and verified by office records when 
such records were kept. The information received indicates 
whether the preparatory work of the students was obtained in 
country or town schools ; it also gives the sex, age, and teaching 
experience of the students, in addition to the amount of their 
previous academic work and the number of daily recitations they 
must take to complete the course in the stipulated time. 

This examination has shown that most of the normal stu- 
dents are products of the country and village schools ; probably 
less than thirty per cent are from even the smaller cities of the 
state. Of the four thousand students personally questioned, 
forty-nine per cent were reared in the country and attended the 
country schools. 

The chapter on the entrance requirements for these normal 
schools shows that a considerable reward in time is offered to 
students with no high school preparation. As a consequence, 

62 



The Student Body 63 

but 1 1.9 per cent of the 3572 students in the three regular classes 
in the year 1909-1910 had a full four-year high school course; 
17.6 per cent had only three years in secondary schools, and 44 
per cent had no work whatever above the common schools be- 
fore entering the normal schools. 

The information gathered as to the number of daily recita- 
tions bears out the statement made in the chapter on the cur- 
riculum to the effect that such a course of study could be com- 
pleted in the stipulated time only if the students were required to 
take an impossible number of recitations. Of the 3572 students 
questioned, 37.8 per cent had six, and 36.4 per cent had from 
seven to nine daily recitations requiring definite preparation. 
In addition, the students were compelled to take courses in 
music, drawing and physical training. One of the experienced 
and well-educated Pennsylvania normal school teachers has this 
to say about the number of daily recitations : 

" The course provides that students shall take about six studies 
per day, a fact that makes anything beyond the most superficial 
work impossible. But the evil does not stop here. Scores of 
students are permitted to take seven, eight, or even nine, lessons 
per day. This condition is worse in the case of the students 
who try to do the work of both the Junior and Middle-year 
classes in one year. During the past school session over fifty 
such students have had nine lessons per day. Such a practice 
is absolutely indefensible and should be condemned in the 
strongest terms." 

The condition this teacher describes is to be found in nearly 
every normal school. For instance, 79 students at West Chester, 
over 80 at Indiana and over 250 at Millersville completed both 
the Junior and Middle years during the school year of 1909-1910 
and were candidates for graduation in June, 191 1. At East 
Stroudsburg, 25 students were given diplomas after one year's 
residence. Many of these persons have taught on provisional 
certificates and some have had two, three, or four years' work 
in some of the Pennsylvania high schools ; but it is impossible 
to believe that they have done thorough work. If the regular 
students are compelled to carry an abnormal number of sub- 
jects, it is evident that those attempting to do two years in one 
cannot do the work satisfactorily. The fact that the Pennsyl- 
vania normal schools will annually permit several hundred of 
their students to do two years in one is incontestable proof that 



64 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



these institutions have low standards of scholarship and that 
they send out few students that have acquired true habits of 
study or understand the difference between thorough and slip- 
shod work. Is it possible for these students as teachers to re- 
quire thorough work from their pupils in the public schools? 

The following table, — Table 2, — gives the data of the Juniors 
as to previous academic preparation : 

TABLE 2. — Giving facts concerning the Juniors in ten Pennsylvania normal 
schools for 1909-1910 as to the amount of previous high school work. 







!h 


a> 


M 


CO 


[B 





j3 






a 

^ 


^ 
^ 


(j3 
ID 











To 
IB 






1—1 


(M 


CO 


Tt< 


m 


S- 







bX3 


T3 


TS 


-o 


-73 





'^^ 


73 







^.^ 


dM 


<^^ 


^^ 


03 


T3 
03^ 


c3 




'■S 




-^S 


-^fe 


-^s 


> 


^ 


Name of School 




i^ 


si 


fi ^ 


^^ 


a 


•s-a 


be 

s 




!h 


V'o 


'>'o 


Vo 


'?'o 


S.S' 


> 




. 


e3 


c3 


a 


c« 





§-^ 


ci^4 




« 
^ 


w 


a; tn 




<B to 




oj 


bD^ 




s 


M - 


W)^ 


W)^ 


W^ 


bC 


bCoj 




3 


rt-Sr, 


o3'f'„ 


=^^€1 


c^-?^ 


o3 


ri S 


o3 ^.1 




a 


4^ bC 


+5 bjD 


-n< bC 


.+J bO 




-t-' e3 


-t^ 






gS 




gs 




>j 


C 




03 


U-l 


VU-I 


1*_ 


5*H 













.fj 


u 


u 


t. 


tn 


;^ 


!- rr 


s- S 







<» ^ 


<D ^ 


a; ^ 


OJ 


<0 


(U 


a; 




H 


Ph 


Ph 


pL, 


Pm 


Ph 


Ph 


Ph 


California 


177 


25.4 


5.6 


3.4 





5.6 


40.0 


60.0 


Clarion 


97 
50 


17.5 
24.0 


13.4 
12.0 


3.1 
2.0 


1.0 



2.1 



37.1 
38.0 


62.9 


Edinboro 


62.0 


Indiana 


48 
184 


18.75 
10.3 


18.75 
12.0 


18.75 
8.2 


10.42 
1.6 



0.5 


66.66 
32.6 


33.33 


Kutztown 


67.4 


Lock Haven 


119 


1.7 


6.7 


10.1 


15.1 


3.4 


37.0 


63.0 


Millersville 


126 


5.6 


27.0 


24.6 


10.3 


0.8 


68.3 


31.7 


Shippensburg. . . . 


86 


9.3 


13.9 


12.8 





3.5 


39.5 


60.5 


Slippery Rock . . . 


146 


12.3 


8.9 


8.2 


2.1 





31.5 


68.5 


West Chester .... 


132 


12.9 


15.2 


18.9 


4.5 


* 


51.5 


48.5 



* Number from private schools at West Chester are included with those 
having had high school work. 

The above table shows that few of the Juniors in the 
Pennsylvania normal schools for 1909-1910 have attended a 
secondary school for a considerable length of time. With the 
exception of Indiana, Millersville, and West Chester, more than 
60 per cent of the Juniors have had no high school work, and in 
nearly every instance the majority of those students from high 
schools have had but one or two years. As has been explained 
elsewhere, the word high school means little in the smaller com- 
munities of Pennsylvania, for in many places a ninth grade of 
the common schools has been known as a high school. 

If these junior students had been enrolled in a good secon- 
dary school, they would have had to carry four or five daily 



The Student Body 



65 



studies requiring definite preparation. In the normal schools, 
practically none of the students had as few as four daily recita- 
tions; in fact, in only three of the above ten schools do even 
one-third carry as few as five studies, while most of them have 
seven or eight daily recitations. The exceptions to this state- 
ment are few, for only at Clarion, California, Indiana and West 
Chester do less than twenty-five per cent have seven or eight. 
In all the other six schools, from 52 to 88.1 per cent of the 
Juniors carry from seven to nine daily recitations requiring defi- 
nite preparation. These students are asked to do twice as much 
as they would be permitted to do in a good high school. 

The following table. Table 3, gives facts for the normal 
school students in the second or middle year with respect to 
previous academic preparation: 

TABLE 3. — Giving facts concerning the middle-year class in ten Pennsyl- 
vania state normal schools for 1909-1910 as to the amount of previous 
high school work. 











CO 


>> 


CO 

'0 






be 

a 




W) 


-cJ 


TJ 


•n 


•n 


03 

-1^ 


'*-' 


73 




Ch 


"^^ 


o3^ 


03^ 


•^M 


o3 


Ti 


03 




■■e 




-^s 


-^g 


-^g 


> 


,C, 


Name of School 




.s ^ 


^ 


c ^ 


bC> 


S 




bC 




U 


'>'o 


■>^'o 


■?'o 


'>'o 


'> 




^ 


o3 


o3 


o3 


03 





S-H 


cj »4 






■^^ 


-^"6 


-^^ 


-^-g 


4:! 


^t*-, 


-^S 




B 


(B 03 


(B to 


<0 OQ 


<B M 


(B 


03 


03 fe. 




bC_, 


bX)^ 


^rH 


bC^ 


bO 


bflm 


bfit^ 




li 


l^'Tn 


i^'B, 


OS'S, 


i^'T^ 


c3 


CS Sh 


c3 ^.H 




':3 


-tj bC 


-|J bO 


+j bC 


H- bO 




4^ o3 


-t^ 




g:3 


gs 




gS 


03 


!h CD 
03 >5 



03 rt 




C3 


OtM 


OtM 


tw 


t4-l 








C3 




-je 


5s 


bi. 


^ 


u 


U 


fH Tl< 


Sh m 







<a 


03 


0) 


(B 


(B 


03 ^ 


03 




H 


PM 


PL, 


^ 


Ph 


Ph 


Ph 


Ph 


California 


154 


18.2 


17.5 


14.9 


3.9 


6.5 


61.0 


39.0 


Clarion 


85 
82 


5.9 

9.7 


24.7 
35.4 


16.5 
14.6 


16.5 
4.9 


1.1 



64.7 
64.6 


35 3 


Edinboro 


35.4 


Indiana 


90 
174 


4.4 
5.7 


20.0 

18.4 


21.1 
20.1 


23.3 
13.2 


2.2 
0.6 


71.0 
58.0 


29.0 


Kutztown 


42.0 


Lock Haven 


97 





10.3 


13.4 


16.5 


7.2 


47.4 


52.6 


Millersville 


102 


9.8 


11.8 


11.8 


26.4 


1.0 


60.8 


39.2 


Shippensburg . . . . 


52 


15.4 


7.7 


13.4 


2.0 


2.0 


40.5 


59.5 


Slippery Rock . . . 


102 


7.8 


21.6 


22.5 


4.0 





55.9 


44.1 


West Chester .... 


266 


6.7 


19.2 


28.6 


23.3 


* 


77.8 


22.2 



* Number from private schools at West Chester are included with those 
having had high school work. 

A comparison of this and Table No. 2 shows that a larger 
percentage of these students have had four years in a secondary 
school, and a considerably larger proportion have completed a 



66 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



three-year course. Many of these students were given advanced 
standing. 

These students also had an abnormal number of studies 
though less Middlers than Juniors had from seven to nine recita- 
tions. The percentage who carried this large number of recita- 
tions varies considerably since but 10.7 per cent at Clarion had 
so many, while at Kutztown 60.7, and at Shippensburg 65.4 per 
cent had from seven to nine recitations. If all those students 
who took in one year the work of the Junior and Middle years 
had been included, this table would show a great increase in the 
abnormal number of recitations, since, for instance, of the 246 
Junior-Middlers at Millersville over yy per cent had from seven 
to nine daily recitations, and practically all the seventy-nine 
Junior-Middlers at West Chester had nine recitations. 

The following table. Table 4, gives the facts for the Seniors 
in eleven of these normal schools as to previous academic pre- 
paration : 

TABLE 4. — Giving facts concerning the Seniors in eleven of the Pennsyl- 
vania state normal schools for 1909-1910 as to the amount of previous 
high school work. 









2 




ai 


CO 








Si 


2 






i—i 


(M 


CO 


•^ 


CO 


2^ 







bO 


-o 


T3 


'ZS 


T3 




^ 


-0 




't. 









n 


d 
> 


Ti 
dxi 




Name of School 



a, 


bcS 
S3 ^ 

■>'o 


'>'o 




si. 

'>'o 


S 


^(^Z 

n 


bC 






o3 


d 


d 


d 


P 


§-a 


c3 ^ 




<D 


Xi^ 


^-^ 


x-fi 


.aj:i 


Ui 




^^ 




-n 




<U CO 



01 tn 






<B an 


a> 


'^ 


be I^ 
d — . 




S 


^^ 


^'fn 


^-5=. 


^fn 


1 


d tn 




a 


Xi 5>C 


^2 bC 


-t^ bO 


-1.^ bC 




-e 03 


H^ 




g2 


CIS 




cD-a 




f3 QJ 

a; >j 


fi 




"3 


54-1 


tn 


tu 


t4-< 








P^ 




-tj 


t- a 


t- 


^ 


fcH 


ti 


tn Ttl 


^ s 







<u ^ 


tu 


a> 


a; " 


Ol 


« 


<u 




H 


Ah 


Pi 


Pm 


P-> 


Ph 


PL| 


Ph 


Bloomsburg (over 


















^ Senior class) . 


91 


5.5 


12.0 


18.6 


20.9 


4.6 


61.6 


38.4 


California 


146 


8.9 


15.0 


12.3 


10.3 


5.5 


52.0 


48.0 


Clarion 


75 

117 


5.0 
1.5 


23.0 
25.0 


7.0 
13.0 


12.0 
11.0 


1.0 



48.0 
64.0 


52.0 


Edinboro 


36.0 


Indiana 


81 
141 


2.5 
4.0 


13.6 
12.0 


14.8 
30.0 


25.9 
7.0 


3.7 
1.0 


60.5 
54.0 


39.5 


Kutztown 


46.0 


Lock Haven 


70 


8.6 


11.4 


30.0 


14.3 


8.6 


72.9 


27.1 


Millersville 


113 


4.4 


11.5 


38.0 


23.9 


1.8 


79.6 


20.4 


Shippensburg .... 


67 


1.5 


10.5 


16.4 


14.9 


1.5 


44.8 


55.2 


Slippery Rock . . . 


91 


6.6 


11.0 


13.2 


20.9 


1.1 


42.8 


47.2 


West Chester .... 


211 


4.7 


14.2 


35.5 


20.9 


* 


75.3 


24.7 



* Number from private schools at West Chester are included with those 
having had high school work. 



The Student Body 67 

Many of the Seniors had had no previous high school work, 
the percentage of those without any varying from 20.4 at 
Millersville to 55.2 at Shippensburg, with both the average and 
the central tendency^ at 39.5 per cent. Upon the other hand, 
comparatively few of the Seniors had had a full four-year high 
school course. Kutztown makes the poorest showing with but 
7 per cent and Indiana the best with 25.9 per cent. The central 
tendency for the eleven normal schools is 14.9 per cent and the 
average is 16.5 per cent for those having completed work in a 
regular secondary school. 

Seniors also have an abnormal number of daily recitations re- 
quiring definite preparation. Kutztown is the only one of the 
eleven schools in which more than 50 per cent of the Seniors 
have as few as five recitations per day requiring definite prep- 
aration; in a majority of the schools less than a third of the 
students have as few. In fact in most, over 50 per cent of the 
Seniors have from six to eight recitations, and over 30 per cent 
have seven or more. The situation seem.s even more impossible 
when consideration is given to the fact that during the year 
1909-1910 observation and practice teaching were required in 
the model school, and the students were expected to make out 
lesson plans and to apply the principles presented in the profes- 
sional courses. 

In the following table, Table 5, two comparisons are made. 
One is between the students in the three-year course of the 
Pennsylvania state normals, and the students in the two-year 
course of six outside state normals ; the former have no definite 
entrance requirements, while the latter insist upon high school 
graduation or its equivalent. The other comparison is between 
the students of the Pennsylvania three-year course and those of 
two Illinois normal schools, which have a four-year course for 
common school graduates, but which offer a special two-year 
course to students from recognized high schools. Below is the 
table making these comparisons : 

^The central tendency is used in place of the technical word median, 
which is defined as the measure above which and below which are an equal 
number of cases. It is always a safer measure than the average. 



68 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



TABLE 5. — Contrasting the student body in the Pennsylvania normal 
schools with those in several outside state normals as to the amount 
of previous high school work. 







tH 


CO 


M 


CO 


i2 


o 


^ 






c3 

1-H 




CO 




o 

02 




o 






T3 


-c 


-a 


':3 




'^ o 


TS 




2^ 


o3^ 


cS^ 


rtji! 


s? 


'^ ? 


CJ 




"C 




-^g 


-^ fe 


-^s 


_> 


TO rC 
-C ?^ 


X 


Name of School 


O 


i^ 


fl ^ 


^^ 


S^ 


s 




fee 




■^ 


'S'° 


■>'o 


■>'o 


>'o 


■>.^ 


'> 




^ 


d O 


ci O 


03 O 


c3 O 


o 


ci r^ 


c; ^ 




Si 




-^-s 


-^-s 


-^-g 


^ 


^^ 


-^ S 




1 


O m 


a> 03 


05 oa 


(B K! 


0) 


QJ O 


!U > 








^"fn 


^"fn 


be 


1^2 


brjf= 

C3 — , 




r* 


-t^ bJO 


+^ tiD 


^-i bC 


-i-j bC 


-t.^ 


-1^ cS 


+-' o 






CIS 




g:5 


g2 










il 


014-, 


O t*-i 


« <-._, 


O t*H 


« 


O "^ 


Oo 




-J^ 


5r! O 


'r, o 


i- o 


^ O 




f^ Tit 


^- M 




o 


a; 


0) 


<B 


CI 


S 


V 


(D 




H 


Cm 


Cm 


CL, 


Ph 


Ph 


Ph 


&H 


Fitchburg, Mass. . 


161 











100.0 


* 


100.0 





Hyannis, Mass . . . 


35 








17.1 


80.0 


* 


97.1 


2.9 


Salem, Mass 


172 











100.0 


* 


100.0 





Worcester, Mass.. 


105 


1.0 








99.0 


* 


100.0 





Montclair, N. J.. . 


319 











100.0 


* 


100.0 





San Jose, Cal .... 


509 


0,2 


0.8 


3.7 


94.1 


* 


98.8 


1.2 


Total 


1301 


0.2 


0.3 


1.9 


97.1 


* 


99.5 


0.5 


Pennsylvania! . . . 


3572 


9.2 


15.3 


17.6 


11.9 


2.0 


56.0 


44.0 


Normal, 111 


393 


12.2 


12.7 


13.0 


31.8 


* 


69.7 


30.3 


Charleston, 111 . . . 


325 


3.1 


7.7 


9.2 


27.7 





47.7 


52.3 



* Number from private schools are included with those having had high 
school work. 

■f This includes the Junior and Middle-year students in ten of the thir- 
teen normal schools, and the Seniors in eleven. 

The first comparison shows two or three startling differences. 
In the six outside normals, giving a two-year course based upon 
graduation from high schools of good standing, 97.1 per cent 
of the students have had four years of high school work, while 
but 1 1.9 per cent of the 3572 Pennsylvania students have had 
the same. A pupil graduating from any one of the six outside 
normal schools would be compelled to complete four years of 
academic and two of professional study above the common 
schools ; a student in a Pennsylvania normal seldom spends more 
than three years, certainly not more than four, of academic and 
professional study above the work of the common schools. 

Though the students in the Pennsylvania normals are not in 
any sense the academic equals of the students in the six out- 
side normal schools, yet they carry many more studies requir- 



The Student Body 69 

ing definite preparation. With the exception of the Worcester, 
Massachusetts, normal, none of the outside normal students 
carry more than five studies, while 37.8 per cent of the Pennsyl- 
vania students carry six studies ; 24.8 per cent carry seven, and 
over ten per cent pretend to carry eight or nine daily subjects 
requiring definite preparation In a word, the Pennsylvania stu- 
dents with poor preparation attempt to do more than do stu- 
dents with much better preparation. This condition must neces- 
sarily affect the efficiency of these Pennsylvania students when 
they become public school teachers. 

The second comparison is also not in favor of the Pennsyl- 
vania normal schools, though at first glance this might be the in- 
ference. For instance, 44 per cent of the 3572 Pennsylvania 
students have had no high school work, as against 52.3 per cent 
for Charleston. When it is recalled that practically all the 
Pennsylvania students who enter directly from the common 
schools are graduated in three years, instead of four as at 
Charleston, the comparison takes a different aspect. When it is 
further recalled that many of the Pennsylvania students are al- 
lowed to shorten the time by combining the work of two years 
in one, while at Charleston no such opportunity is given and 
every student from the common schools must have four years 
of work, the comparison is undoubtedly in favor of Charleston. 
It may be added here that in Illinois no student is allowed to 
shorten the time of study. A high school graduate must take 
two full years, a graduate from a non-accredited high school 
must take three full years, and a graduate from the common 
schools must take four full years. This, as has been previously 
stated, is not the case in Pennsylvania since many students can 
be graduated in less than the stipulated time. For instance, at 
East Stroudsburg in 1909, 25 students from four-year high 
schools were graduated in one year and like instances can be 
cited from other Pennsylvania schools. 

Again the Pennsylvania normals suffer when comparison is 
made between them and the two Illinois normals with respect to 
the number of daily recitations requiring definite preparation. 
For instance, 59.5 per cent of the students at Normal, Illinois, 
and 81.2 per cent at Charleston, Illinois, have but four recita- 
tions, while as few as 3.6 per cent of the Pennsylvania students 
have the same number. In Pennsylvania, 22.1 per cent have five 



7 b Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

recitations as against 17.4 for the Illinois schools. Practically 
none of the Illinois students are permitted to carry more than 
five studies, but in Pennsylvania, where the students try to do in 
three years what the Illinois students find difficult to do in four 
years, 37.8 per cent have six and 24.8 per cent have seven daily 
recitations requiring definite preparation. In fact, 74.2 per cent 
have 6 or over against 2.91 per cent for both the Illinois schools. 
The figures would be still higher if a complete record of those 
students attempting to do two years' work in one could have 
been obtained. 

In most of the Pennsylvania normal schools the classes are 
very large. This is true of even the most prosperous schools. 
Less regard seems to be given to the size of the classes in the 
professional subjects than to any other. Even at West Chester, 
where the financial conditions are excellent, five of the sections 
in Methods and School Management during the year 1909-1910 
enrolled from 78 to 83 ; at Bloomsburg the classes in the three 
professional studies enrolled from 50 to 60. At Clarion the 
number ran from 75 to 128; at Edinboro from 70 to 120; at 
Indiana from 50 to 54; at Lock Haven from 112 to 150; and at 
Mansfield and Slippery Rock from 80 to 93. 

The classes in the academic subjects were also abnormally 
large. At Edinboro the three sections in botany, which requires 
laboratory work, had an enrollment in each from 50 to 60 
students; 20 of the classes in academic subjects in Indiana 
ranged in size from 30 to 50, and the classes at Kutztown were 
equally large. At Mansfield both the Virgil and Caesar classes 
enrolled 45 students. Probably the conditions were even worse 
at Lock Haven, Millersville, and Slippery Rock. At Lock Haven 
a dozen classes enrolled from 35 in Caesar to 60 in trigonome- 
try, German, botany and physics. At Millersville one labora- 
tory section in zoology had 58 students and another in botany 
had 60, while nine other classes had an enrollment from 40 to 
71 students. The condition at Slippery Rock was even worse: 
one Latin section had 67 students, and the Junior algebra class 
had over 80; the two senior sections in English had respectively 
85 and 90, while the botany and zoology sections each had from 
75 to 90. 

Probably in no first-class high school in the country can a 



The Student Body 



71 



like condition be found. In the Butler high school, located 
within a few miles of Slippery Rock, the laboratory work is 
much more efficiently conducted than in most of the Pennsyl- 
vania normal schools, and the classes are of reasonable size. 
No high school principal would think of having a class of 50 
or 60 in Latin or German. At the Erie high school, not far 
from Edinboro, the laboratory equipment is far superior to that 
found in the normal school, and no class during the past year 
had an enrollment above 30 pupils. 

The above discussion has been confined to the regular classes 
in the Pennsylvania normal schools; but a study of the student 
body in these institutions would not be complete without an ex- 
amination of the preparatory or Sub-Junior class which is to be 
found in practically every one of the thirteen Pennsylvania 
normals. 

The following table, Table 6, gives facts concerning over five 
hundred Sub- Juniors enrolled in seven of the Pennsylvania nor- 
mal schools : 



TABLE 6. — Giving facts concerning the Sub- Juniors in the Pennsylvania 
normal schools for 1909-1910 as to the amount of previous high school 
work and the number of daily recitations requiring definite preparation. 



Name of School 


el 

a 

u 

1 

g 




u 

C3 

>> 
I— 1 

ce 


K 

<a ^ 
Ph 


eS 

^-^ 

+3 be 

Pi 


CO 


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Pi 





<v 

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s 
s 

<a 
bD 

C3 

fl 
<D 


03 




'^ 

tj 

'^ 

Pi 


IB 


bD 



■> 

a; > 


Clarion 


69 
63 
41 
15 

151 
46 

173 


13.0 
9.5 
2.4 


12.6 
6.5 
2.3 


13.0 
7.9 
2.4 


11.9 
6.5 

13.9 


7.3 
1.6 



6.0 

4.4 

14.4 










3.3 



8.7 




6.4 

2.4 



0.7 

2.2 

5.8 


33.3 
25.4 

7.2 



34.5 
19.6 
45.1 


66.7 
74.6 
92.8 
100.0 
65.5 
80.4 
54.9 


Indiana 


Kutztown 

Lock Haven 

Millersville 

Slippery Rock . . . 
West Chester .... 


Total ....... 


558 


7.5 


10.8 


7.5 


3.6 


3.0 


32.4 


67.6 



72 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

A careful study of Table 6 shows that 6y.6 per cent of the 
sub- juniors have had no high school work whatever, and only 
I I.I have had three or four years at a secondary school. Most 
of the students who had previously attended high school had 
not been graduated. Pupils in this lowest class of the normal 
schools also had an impossible number of recitations : 37.3 per 
cent had six recitations; 22.0 per cent seven, and 13. i per cent 
tried to carry eight or nine daily recitations requiring definite 
preparation. 

One hundred and fifty or 27.95 P^^ cent of the 558 sub- 
juniors had had some teaching experience. Eighty-two or 14.9 
per cent had taught one year, and 34 or 6.18 per cent had taught 
two years. The normal school authorities may claim that a dis- 
tinct service is rendered the state by caring for these inefficient 
teachers and adding somewhat to their skill and effectiveness. 
This might be granted if it were not for the fact that in this 
same normal class are another group that have no place in a 
professional school, since they belong to the upper grades of a 
common school or the first year of a high school. At the end 
of one year or even in less time some of these pupils use the 
name of the normal in order to obtain a license and a school, 
though in no sense of the word are they prepared to teach. The 
establishment of a Sub-Junior class by Kutztown, Millersville, 
Slippery Rock, West Chester and other Pennsylvania normals 
undoubtedly tends to lower the professional standards in the im- 
mediate neighborhood of the schools, since most of the sub- 
juniors come from the local normal school counties. 

To sum up, this Sub- Junior class is composed of many boys 
and girls from the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades; of older 
students who found it hard to do satisfactory work in a high 
school in their own neighborhood, and of teachers of two or 
three years' experience who have much difficulty to obtain a pro- 
visional certificate and who seldom aspire to continue the normal 
course and fit themselves properly for their work. 

This class is merely preparatory and has no place in the 
normal, but it is kept in most schools for two definite reasons : 
in the first place, principals are thus assured of a goodly number 
of juniors for the following year, and in the second place, for 
those that are 17 years or over the schools receive $1.50 a 



The SUident Body 73 

week from the state simply by enrolling them in a Methods 
Course. 

Although the defects of the Pennsylvania normals are mainly 
due to the fact that these institutions are under private lay con- 
trol, the normal school law^ is nevertheless to a considerable 
extent responsible for some of the shortcomings of these insti- 
tutions. Especially does it affect the student body, for because 
of the manner of distributing " state aid," a premium is placed 
upon gross numbers and therefore the principal must see to it 
that a large student body is enrolled. The result is that instead 
of raising the teaching profession to a level with the other pro- 
fessions, thereby enabling it to fulfill its obligations to society, 
these institutions actually retard the educational advancement of 
some localities because, to have successful schools, the principals 
are obliged to lower the standards, admit all applicants, and 
finally to send forth into the teaching profession many young 
men and women poorly equipped for their important duties. 

^The new school law of 191 1 does not correct this evil. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE FACULTY 

With few exceptions, the faculties of the Pennsylvania normal 
schools are composed of fine-spirited, earnest men and women 
who have the best interests of their pupils at heart and who 
give their whole energy to their school. In the main, these 
teachers are both overworked and underpaid, and because of 
this, certain unfortunate conditions have come about which de- 
serve full description and consideration. As in previous chap- 
ters, it will be shown that private control of these publicly-sup- 
ported institutions has either created or accentuated these ad- 
verse conditions. 

In order to analyze in detail the status of teaching in these 
institutions, a complete history of 265 of the instructors has 
been obtained. Of these, slightly more than half have attended 
some normal school, often the one in which they are now teach- 
ing. It was found that 183 of the 265 have had from one to 
four years of college training, and 117 hold the bachelor's 
degree. 

A large number of the Pennsylvania colleges which many of 
the normal school teachers attended, however, are very small 
and lead a precarious existence; and many of them, probably 
40 per cent, give work not more than one or two years above a 
good high school course. 

This naturally leads to the question of the value of degrees, 
both earned and honorary. In each instance the highest degree 
of the individual has been taken as the most representative. Of 
the 47 A. M. degrees reported, 27 or 57.4 per cent were earned. 
Of the 22 doctor's degrees reported, 45.4 per cent were earned. 
Six of these degrees as well as six of the master's were con- 
ferred by such institutions as Kansas City University, Washing- 
ton and Jefferson College, and Worcester University for work 
done in absence. 

The higher educational institutions of Pennsylvania and other 

74 



The Faculty 75 

states have conferred, all told, seventy-seven honorary' degrees 
upon the teachers in these thirteen state normal schools. At 
Bloomsburg five of the teachers have received the honorary A.B. 
and six the honorary A. M. degree. Most of these titles have 
been conferred by Lafayette College. It is surprising to learn that 
thirty-six honorary A. M. degrees have been given, but it is 
still more surprising to find that eleven men have received the 
honorary title of Doctor of Philosophy. These titles have been 
conferred by Lafayette, Wittenberg, Bucknell, Washington and 
Jefferson, and Wesley an University (Ohio), and one or two 
other institutions. Bucknell College has also given the honorary 
Doctor of Science degree to two teachers. 

A study has been made of the teaching experience of the 
members of the normal school faculties before they accepted 
their present positions. Thirty, or 11.4 per cent of the 265 re- 
porting the amount of previous experience, had never taught 
before. Only 226 state specifically the kind of position they had 
previously held. Eight had been city superintendents, and a 
majority of these eight have since become normal school prin- 
cipals; nineteen had been high school or ward principals; 
twenty-six had been engaged in teaching in some of the smaller 
Pennsylvania colleges ; one hundred and fifty-six had been only 
common- or graded-school teachers: and but 17, or 7.5 per cent, 
had had previous normal school experience. Most of these 17 
had been employed in other Penns)dvania normal schools, which 
indicates that it has been the policy of a majority of the prin- 
cipals never to go outside the state to supply vacancies. As a 
consequence, the Pennsylvania normal schools have too seldom 
been able to compare their methods and results with those of 
other state normal schools. This is made still more evident, 
when it is considered that as many as 156, or 69 per cent, of the 
226 had taught only in the grades or common schools. 

These figures undoubtedly indicate that the normal schools 
are willing to take persons with no experience whatever, or per- 
sons who have simply become skilled in teaching the common 
school branches, rather than to engage individuals who have 
specialized in a particular subject at a first-rate college, univer- 
sity, or school of education. There are exceptions, but this un- 
doubtedly is the tendency. One exception to this is found at the 



76 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

Indiana normal where a large group of graduates from the best 
colleges in the east and the middle-west has recently been added 
to the faculty. 

A tabulation of the native residence of 289 of the normal 
school teachers shows that 84 of these persons, or 29 per cent, 
were reared in the thirteen counties where these schools are 
situated. A more significant fact is that 201, or 69.5 per cent of 
the 289 teachers whose residences were obtained, claim Pennsyl- 
vania as their native residence. 

It is reasonable to assume that a very large proportion of men 
should come from within the state itself; it is most desirable 
that this should be so; but it is unfortunate that not more often 
a leading educator from an adjoining state has been chosen, 
since few of the principals or other leading normal men have 
availed themselves of any opportunity to go abroad and compare 
their system of schools with those of other countries. 

One notable exception, and only one can be cited to this 
sweeping assertion, and that is the case of the former principal 
of the California state normal, the late Doctor Theodore B. 
Noss, who had enough faith in himself and his work to go 
abroad for two years to discover first-hand what other countries 
were doing to make the teaching profession stronger and more 
serviceable. The loss of this man to the educational interests 
of the state of Pennsylvania is severe. 

A study of the salaries shows that the average pay for the 
284 teachers is $1,274.40, with 223 below and 61 above the 
average, and with the central tendency at $961.^ One hundred 
and fifty-five teachers receive between $700 and $1,100 inclusive. 
An investigation of the comparative salaries of the men and 
women teachers shows that the former are much better paid. 
The average salary paid the 137 women is $782.88,^ and the 
average paid the 134 men (the thirteen principals being ex- 
cluded) is $1,176.67. These averages are very close to the cen- 
tral tendency since 65 women have higher and 72 lower salaries 
than their average indicates, and yy of the 137 women receive 

^ The central tendency is used in place of the technical work median, 
which is defined as the measure above which and below which are an 
equal number of cases. 

^ Two hundred dollars has been added to the salary of each teacher liv- 
ing free of charge in the school dormitory for ten months of the year. 
Often, however, this teacher is compelled to do extra work in the way of 
hall duty and disciplining to pay for this increase in salary. 



The Faculty 7 7 

salaries ranging from $700 to $900 inclusive; and 64 men have 
higher and 70 have lower salaries than their average given above, 
and 73 of the 134 men receive salaries ranging from $1,000 to 
$1,400 inclusive. Only 23 women receive $1,000 or over, and 
but one woman has a salary of above $1,200. Her salary, which 
is $1,400, is equaled or surpassed by 38, or over one-fourth, of 
the entire number of men teachers. 

The amount of service required for these ordinary salaries 
is considerable. Practically all the normal teachers in the state 
institutions have six recitations per day or thirty per week; in 
but one of the thirteen schools, California, is there a tendency 
to keep the number down to five a day or twenty-five a week. 
One normal school principal believes that thirty a week is not 
excessive. 

To add very much to the labor of the teachers, many of the 
classes are extremely large. Probably no high school in the 
state has such enormous classes. Since the details as to the size 
of classes have been given in the chapter on the normal school 
students, the subject is considered here only as it adds to the 
burden of the teachers. 

Undoubtedly these instructors can do little in the way of self- 
improvement during the regular school term. Under the cir- 
cumstances it is surprising that they are able to keep well since 
besides the regular teaching many of them are expected and 
practically compelled to aid in the social life of the school. A 
number of the men look after the coaching and management of 
athletic teams, while the women are called upon to assist the girls 
in their social activities. Because of the dormitory life in all 
these institutions, the extra demands upon the teachers are many 
and heavy. 

Since it is practically impossible for these teachers to improve 
their scholarship under these adverse conditions, it is important 
to discover how many have been able or willing to obtain leave 
of absence from their work for such a purpose. Of all the 
teachers whose records have been obtained, only five or six 
have had a full year's leave of absence since beginning work 
in their present position. The case of the late Doctor Noss, of 
the California normal, who went abroad for two years, has 
already been cited as a distinct exception. Only 90 of the 



78 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

Pennsylvania normal school teachers have done any advanced 
work since taking their present position and forty-eight of these, 
or ^^ per cent of the 90, have had work for but one or two sum- 
mers in some of the eastern universities or at a Chautauqua ; 
very few of the others have gone abroad for even two or three 
months ; while five or six others have taken special work in 
some nearby higher educational institution for a semester at 
week-ends. 

Since 156, or more than 50 per cent of these teachers have not 
had anything more than graded-school or common-school experi- 
ence, we can understand what the present situation means. 
Because of the large classes, skill in schoolroom management is 
\rery important, and this is assured by getting practical teachers 
from the field. Scholarship is not in considerable demand in any 
one of the institutions. If a man. or woman of true scholarship 
is employed, his zeal for research and his desire for growth 
are soon lost in the treadmill of six or seven recitations per day 
and in the additional duties that are required in the dormitories, 
the athletic activities, and in the social life. 

Here again are to be found other evils largely due to the 
domination by private lay boards. In accordance with the inter- 
pretation of the laws by the state superintendent, the selection 
and remuneration of teachers lie wholly in the hands of the 
trustees. Many of these boards are composed of men who have 
very limited incomes and naturally do not look with favor upon a 
proposition to give " school teachers " what they consider 
enormous salaries. Even men of large incomes cannot under- 
stand how school teachers can expect to receive reasonable com- 
pensation. When suit was brought against officials of the West 
Chester normal to prevent them from taking from the normal 
school treasury between $25,000 and $26,000, they replied by 
criticizing the school expenditures, and they especially objected 
to the " high salaries " paid the instructors. The officials of all 
the Pennsylvania normal schools have gone out into the open 
market to secure teachers for the smallest amount of money. 
Their refusal to pay reasonable salaries has resulted in the fol- 
lowing adverse conditions : 

I. Often they obtain in the local normal school district rather 
efficient teachers who in order to remain near home are willing 



The Faculty 7 9 

to work for a lower salary than they would accept elsewhere, 
but who are not financially able to continue their studies in 
higher institutions. This accounts for much of the inbreeding. 

2. Occasionally they employ teachers from outside the state 
who through lack of initiative, or perhaps ambition, or by acci- 
dent, accept positions in these schools. Some of them are 
content to remain in spite of the low salaries. 

It may be added that a number of the Pennsylvania teachers 
can bear comparison with the best in other states ; but many 
cannot, and the longer they remain in these institutions the 
greater will be the contrast since low salaries, an abnormal num- 
ber of recitations per day, lack of reward for graduate study 
and high scholarship, and additional burdens due to the dormi- 
tory life of the schools have prevented the best teachers in these 
institutions from reaching their highest efficiency and have 
enabled the poorly equipped and inefficient to continue for a long 
time in their present positions. 

It is a simple economic question: if the state normal schools 
in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, New York, and practically 
all the other northern and western states pay better salaries, they 
will eventually attract the best men and women in Pennsylvania 
and only those of second-rate ability will remain. Pennsylvania 
must enter into competition with these states or her educational 
interests will continue to suffer. 



CHAPTER X 

THE RELATION OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOLS 
TO THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS 

The Pennsylvania State normal schools and the public high 
schools are to-day in direct conflict. In previous chapters it has 
been shown that a large number of the normal school students 
belong to the high school period, and their academic preparation 
is such that they should be attending the secondary schools in 
their own neighborhood. In the past it was undoubtedly true 
that the high schools of the state were so few and so inadequate 
that it was absolutely necessary for the state normal schools 
to give academic work of secondary grade. For the last ten 
years, however, there has been increasingly less need for the 
normal schools to devote time and energy to academic instruc- 
tion, but strange to say the normal school principals as late as 
1910 agreed upon a four-year course of study that possesses 
many characteristics of the ordinary high school and places their 
institutions in direct competition with the rapidly increasing 
public high schools. 

The increasing demand for v/ell-equipped teachers caused the 
early educational leaders of Pennsylvania to look about for some 
type of institution that would meet the needs of the public 
school system. The plan of leaving the preparation of teachers 
wholly to private initiative had failed; the plan to subsidize 
church and private academies and colleges had likewise failed. 
The efforts of the educators finally resulted in the normal school 
act of 1857, which promised no financial assistance, but set a 
standard of work for one institution in each of the twelve (later 
thirteen) districts. Graduates of these schools were to receive 
permanent teachers' certificates. 

Many of these normal schools were established on the ruins of 
old academies which had suspended operation or were on the 
verge of closing their doors. Because of the fact that these old 
academies had done high school work, and because of the need in 

80 



Relation of State Normal Schools to Public High Schools 8 1 

certain communities for such grade of work, these new institu- 
tions became and have remained in many respects more Hke 
academies of the old type than what they, pretended to be, — 
professional schools. At the beginning the lack of high schools 
was not due so much to the existence of the state normals as to the 
independence of each school district and the failure of the lead- 
ing school men of Pennsylvania to induce the legislature to pass 
laws encouraging the establishment of secondary schools. 
Occasionally, cities like Philadelphia or Harrisburg would ask 
the legislature for permission to erect a high school. But the 
state of Pennsylvania had few first-class high schools as late as 
1890, and the following year, Doctor D. J. Waller, Jr., then state 
superintendent, in his annual report commented at length on the 
great lack of high schools and the need for proper legislation. 

The first general law authorizing the establishment of public 
high schools was passed in 1895, long after many eastern and 
middle western states had completed the establishment of a 
system of secondary schools which enabled the children of any 
community to continue their education in preparation for college, 
for business, or for a profession. 

This law as State Superintendent Schaeffer has explained, 
" divides high schools into three classes, specifies the basis upon 
which money appropriated in aid of high schools shall be dis- 
tributed, and prescribes the scholarship of at least one of the 
teachers to be employed in a high school receiving State aid." 
The law defines a first grade high school as one " maintaining 
four years of study beyond the branches of learning prescribed 
to be taught in the com.mon schools ;" a second grade as one 
maintaining three years; and a third grade as one maintaining 
two years. High schools of the first grade were to receive 
$800, those of the second $600, and those of the third, $400. 
It was also stipulated that no high school could receive state aid 
unless one teacher is " legally certified to teach bookkeeping, 
civics, general history, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, includ- 
ing plane surveying, rhetoric, English literature, Latin, including 
Caesar, Virgil and Cicero, and the elements of physics, chemistry, 
including the chemistry of soils, botany, geology and zoology, 
including entomology, and no teacher shall be employed to teach 
any branch or branches of learning other than those enumerated 



82 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

in his or her certificate."^ This requirement is of great advantage 
to the state normal schools, and proves that these institutions 
have been a factor in restricting, or at least determining all the 
high school legislation. This requirement will be discussed later 
in some detail. 

The first state aid for secondary education was given in 1901 
when the legislature appropriated $50,000 for township high 
schools. In some respects this appropriation was injurious 
because practically no standards were laid down. Since no pro- 
vision was made for high school inspection, the State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction was compelled to distribute money 
to many schools that in no real sense met these few standards. 
As a consequence many " advanced grammar schools " were 
called high schools and received state aid. Since that time, the 
public school officials of Pennsylvania have had to devote much 
time and energy to the reconstruction of these so-called high 
schools. 

The greatest good accomplished by this first appropriation was 
in committing the state of Pennsylvania to a policy which has 
proved of immense value to Massachusetts, New York, Minne- 
sota, and other progressive states. Some time in the future the 
wealthy state of Pennsylvania may provide for " the pupils of 
the country districts school advantages equal to those within 
reach of boys and girls in the cities." 

Later, the state legislature was induced to extend its appropri- 
ations and include borough high schools ; but it was not until 
1907 that it gave $12,000, more by accident than by design, for 
high school inspection which should naturally have been provided 
for when the first money was appropriated. As a consequence, 
thousands of dollars of the state's money have been wasted and 
many communities have been taught to accept poor for excellent 
high school facilities for their children. The first year high 
school inspectors were employed, they refused state aid to over 
seventy schools, thereby saving between $25,000 and $30,000 
to the state. At the same time, they prevented the establishment 
of new high schools that could not oifer proper educational 
facilities to boys and girls. 

It was asserted at the beginning of this chapter that the 



^ The essential features of this classification remain in the Act. of 191 1. 




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Relation of State Normal Schools to Public High Schools 83 

Pennsylvania state normal schools are to-day in opposition to 
the growth and efficiency of the high schools. A study of the 
distribution of the three grades of high schools in the state bears 
out the assertion that the conflict is disastrous to the better 
secondary schools. 

Most of the normals are surrounded by high schools of the 
third grade. At Millersville, one of the largest incorporated 
villages in the state, which has a population of 1,600, there is no 
high school except that belonging to the model school at the state 
normal. This high school, established in 1906, maintains but 
a three-year course. Most of the teaching is done by eighteen 
practice teachers, who are seniors in the normal. The total 
enrollment is but forty-five. In a like town in the middle-west, 
the enrollment would be over one hundred. At Slippery Rock, 
the high school is part of the model school and is a feeder for the 
local state normal. 

At East Stroudsburg, with a population of about 3,500, the 
local high school has a three-year course and an enrollment of 
but fifty-seven. The attendance should be between one hundred 
and fifty and two hundred. The main business of this school 
is to prepare students for the normal. The names of the classes 
have been changed to conform to those of the normal grades, — 
Junior, Middle, Senior. This high school has poor library and 
laboratory facilities. 

The little town of Mansfield has been content to maintain a 
poor high school. The pupils have three years' work above that 
of the grades, and devote much time to the study of arithmetic, 
English grammar, and American history so that they may be 
admitted to the middle-year at the local state normal. At 
Shippensburg, a city of 3,500, the total high school enrollment 
is ninety-five. Two of the three teachers employed are simply 
normal graduates; in fact it is the policy of the Shippensburg 
board of education to select normal graduates as teachers. The 
laboratory equipment in this school is worth less than two 
hundred dollars. 

At Edinboro, a town of 1,000 inhabitants in a good agricultural 
district, the three-year high school enrolls sixty pupils. The 
supervising principal, a college graduate, teaches nine classes 
each day, and his assistant, a graduate of the local normal, has 



84 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

ten classes. The high school has no laboratory facilities. Many 
who would otherwise attend this high school have been enrolled 
as students in the local state normal. 

Kutztown has a third grade school with but one teacher and 
Avith an enrollment of fourteen, though the school district has a 
population of three thousand. The normal enrolls many of the 
students who should be attending the local high school. At 
Indiana, a city of 7,000 inhabitants, the high school, which should 
have over three hundred students, last year enrolled but one 
hundred and thirty-seven. The laboratory equipment is prob- 
ably worth one hundred dollars. This school has been rated 
by the high school inspectors as third grade.^ At Clarion, a city 
of 3,000 or over, the two-year high school has an enrollment 
of thirty-six and but one regular teacher. 

In practically all the normal school towns, the only way of 
reaching a first class college or professional school is by attending 
the local state normal, or by going to a first grade high school 
away from home and frequently outside the county. 

This state of affairs is both undemocratic and wasteful. If 
the thousands of dollars given to the state normals of Pennsyl- 
vania for purely high school teaching were devoted to the estab- 
lishment and support of public high schools under adequate and 
wise supervision, the result would be both startling and salutary. 
In the end it would enable the normal schools to become strictly 
professional, and it would encourage the establishment of an 
adequate system of secondary schools which would raise con- 
siderably the educational standards for the entire state. 

The condition of secondary education in Pennsylvania even 
outside the normal school environment is far from satisfactory. 
In order to understand the status of the secondary schools, 
blanks asking for detailed information were sent to representa- 
tive high schools of each grade, in every county in the state, 
and replies were received from a majority. In addition, high 
schools in various parts of the commonwealth were personally 
inspected and many public school men were consulted. 

The facts thus obtained reveal several striking defects. They 
show that even many of the first grade high schools have meagre 
laboratory equipment, and little money has been spent recently 

^ The state high school inspectors in 1910-1911 rated the Indiana high 
school as second grade. 



Relation of State Normal Schools to Public High Schools 85 

by the school directors to rectify this defect. The first and 
second grade schools have spent more money for physics than 
for all the other sciences combined. Less than half as much 
has been used for chemistry, while the laboratory facilities for 
botany, zoology, and physical geography are practically worth- 
less. The average total expenditure for laboratory equipment for 
the first grade high schools is $1,069.60 and for the second grade 
but $280.40, while the central tendency for the first is $750 and 
for the second $200. Practically none of the third grade high 
schools have any laboratory. Few of the schools of even the 
first grade have good working libraries and reference books. 

The teachers in these high schools have too many recitations : 
the average for those in the first grade is 6.5, with the central 
tendency at 6.93 per day; for those in the second, the average 
is 7.87, with the central tendency at 8.25 ; and for those in the 
third grade the average is 8.48, and the central tendency 7.88, 
with 44 per cent teaching from ten to thirteen daily recitations. 

The salaries of the Pennsylvania high school teachers are too 
low. In the schools of the first grade reporting, the central 
tendency in salary is $84.06; for the second grade, it is $77.50, 
and for the third grade, $70.63. The central tendency in salary 
for all the teachers is $80.10. These salaries, running from seven 
to nine m.onths, are so meagre that the best teachers soon find 
positions in the large city high schools or leave the profession 
altogether, and the tendency is for only those of mediocre ability 
to be retained for any length of time. 

The attendance in all grades, as shown by the facts obtained, 
is very small. For all these schools, the average attendance is 
83 pupils with the central tendency at 58.75 per school. At the 
same time, the average population for a school district was found 
to be 5,318 with the central tendency at 3,087. This indicates 
conclusively that comparatively few boys and girls in Pennsyl- 
vania are attending high schools. 

In quality, size and number, the Pennsylvania high schools are 
in contrast to those of many other states, due largely to the fact 
that the state has not aided and directed them properly. In 1902 
when " sixty-six Pennsylvania town-ship high schools came up 
to the legal standard and received their share of aid," the first 
ever given by that state, Ohio, with much less wealth and with 



86 



Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 



over two million less population, had six hundred and ninety- 
nine township high schools. This contrast was discussed by 
State Superintendent Schaeffer, of Pennsylvania, in his annual 
report for that year. A few years ago, New Jersey gave to her 
state board of education the authority to supervise all public 
high schools. At present it gives from three to four hundred 
dollars for every teacher employed in secondary schools maintain- 
ing a definite standard. In fact for the past ten years most of the 
northern and western states have given annually many thousands 
of dollars for the betterment of their system of secondary 
schools. Moreover, they have taken care to have this money 
wisely and legitimately expended. 

The following table, Table 7, made from statistics given 
in the annual report of the United States Commissioner of 
Education for 1908-1909, compares Pennsylvania with six other 
states as to population, wealth, total number of secondary schools 
with their enrollment and teachers, and proportion of secondary 
pupils to the entire population : 

TABLE 7. — Comparing Pennsylvania with six other states as to population, 
wealth, number of high schools, number of teachers and pupils in these 
schools and relative number of high school pupils to the population.* 



Name of State 


No. 

of 

schools 


No. 

of 

teachers 


No. 

of 

students 


Popula- 
tion 


Total 
assessed 
valuation 


No. of 
students 
to every 
1,000 
popu- 
lation 


Pennsylvania . 
New York. . . . 
Massachusetts 
Ohio 


731 
596 
223 
812 
629 
565 
199 


2520 
4041 
1983 
2638 
1955 
2500 
1086 


59,183 
101,497 
51,823 
60,280 
42,322 
58,991 
23,613 


6,302,115 
7,268,894 
2,805,346 
4,157,545 
2,516,462 
4,821,550 
1,751,394 


•15,769,777,327 
9,666,118,681 
4,574,136,145 
2,352,680,824 
1,776,132,096 
1,263,500,487 
1,090,684,936 


9 
14 
18 
15 


Indiana 

Illinois 

Minnesota. . . . 


17 
12 
14 



* Statistics as to schools, teachers, and pupils, were taken from the re- 
port for 1908-1909 of the United States Commissioner of Education. Sta- 
tistics as to population and wealth were obtained from the World's Almanac. 

A casual glance at this table shows an advantage for Pennsyl- 
vania since during the year 1908- 1909, that state claimed to have 
731 high schools, which is in excess of the number in any of 
the others except Ohio. But an analysis of the table shows that 



Relation of State Normal Schools to Public High Schools 87 

this superiority is apparent, not real : a large number of these 
Pennsylvania high schools are such in name only. For this same 
year, the Pennsylvania state high school inspectors reported that 
over 490 of these secondary schools belonged to the third 
grade, — a two-year course, with one or two teachers, and prac- 
tically no library or laboratory equipment. 

The table shows that Pennsylvania with 18 per cent more 
schools has 38 per cent less teachers than the state of New York ; 
and though it has 69 per cent more high schools than Massachu- 
setts, it has only 21 per cent more teachers. Such differences 
are not to be explained by the congested condition of Massachu- 
setts and New York ; distinctly agricultural states like Ohio and 
Indiana make as good a showing as Pennsylvania, while Illinois 
and Minnesota with more territory and considerably smaller 
population provide superior advantages in the way of better 
equipped schools. 

The last column of the above table tells its own story: a fair 
proportion of the boys and girls of Pennsylvania are not enrolled 
in the secondary schools. The condition in Pennsylvania is much 
worse than it is in Massachusetts, which has added a very large 
foreign population to its citizenship within the past fifteen years. 
Minnesota has also a large foreign population, probably as difficult 
to assimilate as the foreigners that have been attracted to many 
districts in Pennsylvania. Yet Minnesota through state aid and 
wise state supervision has carefully distributed her first class 
high schools in an area nearly twice as large as that of Pennsyl- 
vania, and among a population less than a fifth as numerous so 
that equal opportunities could be afforded the country boys and 
girls and the children of foreign-born parents who are unable 
to pay tuition in private acadamies. As a consequence, out of 
every one thousand persons in Minnesota, 14 attend public 
high schools, which is 36 per cent greater than the number 
attending similar institutions in Pennsylvania. Massachusetts 
makes even a better showing, since it exceeds Pennsylvania by 
50 per cent ; but even agricultural states like Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois, with a much smaller population and much less wealth, 
are able to put Pennsylvania to shame. 

An analysis of other figures given by the Commissioner of 
Education shows the following interesting facts as to the per- 



88 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

centage of high schools having a full four-year course in each 
of these states : 



^ In Pennsylvania 


34.4 per cent have a four-year course. 


In New York 


83.0 per cent have a four-year course. 


In Massachusetts 


90.5 per cent have a four-year course. 


In Ohio 


55.7 per cent have a four-year course, 


In Indiana 


66.9 per cent have a four-year course. 


In Illinois 


68.7 per cent have a four-year course. 


In Minnesota 


98.9 per cent have a four-year course. 



This comparison shows that Pennsylvania stands last among 
the seven states in spite of her large population and great wealth, 
which morally obligate her to establish and maintain a complete 
system of well-equipped first grade high schools. 

What is the safest and most desirable avenue leading out of 
this chaos? Under what condition can Pennsylvania have an 
efficient system of secondary schools? 

1. The section of the high school law of 1895^ relating to 
the certification of high school teachers should be changed. At 
present it is required by this law that each school receiving state 
aid shall have at least one teacher legally certified to teach 
practically all the secondary schools subjects. By accident or 
design, these are the identical subjects found to-day in the normal 
school curriculum, and therefore, a normal diploma is a license 
to teach in any high school of the state. It is difficult for a 
college graduate to com.ply with this law, especially if he has 
been sensible enough to concentrate his time and energy upon 
a specialty. The law tends to place in the high schools of the 
state many normal graduates who are not qualified since their 
academic work in the normal school is purely secondary in 
character. 

2. The third grade high schools should be combined into 



^ In the report of the Pennsylvania state high school inspectors for 1908- 
1909, only 96 four-year high schools were rated as first-grade. If this fact 
is considered, then Pennsylvania drops to 17 per cent. This report of the 
inspectors excludes a very few city high schools which receive no state aid. 

"The law of 1911, though much like the law of 1895, is an improvement. 
It provides that " a sufficient number of the teachers " shall be employed 
to teach any of the following branches : " bookkeeping, civil government, 
general history, algebra, geometry, rhetoric, English Literature, Latin (in- 
cluding Caesar, Virgil, and Cicero) physical geography, and the elements 
of botany, of zoology, of physics, and of chemistr}^ But no teacher shall 
be employed to teach any branch other than those enumerated in his cer- 
tificate." 



Relation of State Normal Schools to Public High Schools 89 

fewer joint high schools with a full four-year course, with well- 
prepared teachers, and good laboratory and library facilities/ 

3. Districts not containing a first grade high school should be 
required to pay the tuition of all pupils who desire to attend 
such a school outside these districts.- It should be added that 
one hundred thousand dollars has already been granted by the 
Pennsylvania legislature for this purpose. The public school 
system of every district and of every county should be such as 
to lead by direct steps from the country and graded school to 
the local high school, and from the local high school to the best 
colleges, universities, technical and professional schools of the 
country. Otherwise the children of parents of limited means 
have no opportunity to compete with the children of the wealthy. 
A democracy means equal opportunity, and this cannot come 
to the thousands of Pennsylvania children until they have opened 
to them a system of secondary education as good as that found 
in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, and 
many other states. 

4. In the near future, Pennsylvania should have two or three 
additional high school inspectors with increased authority. The 
state must also provide more money to the first grade high 
schools. To make the secondary system of schools still more 
efficient, the state should also provide elementary school in- 
spection.^ 

5. The conflict of interest between the state normal schools 
and the struggling public high schools should cease. The state 
normal schools should not be permitted to enroll a single stu- 
dent until he has been graduated from a first grade high school. 

So long as the Pennsylvania normal schools are publicly sup- 
ported and privately controlled and so long as they admit stu- 
dents from the common schools and the third-grade high 
schools, they will not be able to discharge their proper func- 
tion, and they will retard the establishment and development of 
a splendid system of high-grade secondary schools. The state 
normals or private high schools of Pennsylvania receive pay for 
doing work which if done by high schools would be both more 
thorough and less expensive, and would reach thousands of chil- 
dren that today are sadly neglected. 

Such is the condition in a state, which though surpassed by 
but one other of the entire forty-eight states in either population 

^ The new law makes provision for the establishment of such joint 
schools. 

^ This provision is embodied in the new law. 

^ The new school law has made provision for additional inspectors. 



go Pemisylvania State Normal Schools 

or wealth, gives meagre opportunities to the children of the 
middle classes to obtain a thorough education. The president of 
a state university in the middle-west has said that " the people 
want open paths from every corner of the state, through the 
schools, to the highest and best things which men can achieve. 
To make such paths, to make them open to the poorest and lead 
to the highest, is the mission of democracy." This mission is 
yet to be fulfilled by the Pennsylvania public school system, and 
the leadership of the normal school principals cannot be enlisted 
in the solution of these important secondary problems until the 
normal schools leave the field of secondary education and con- 
fine themselves to their legitimate professional work. 



CHAPTER XI 

CONCLUSIONS 

The greatest defect of the Pennsylvania Normal School 
system is the present management. This weakness, bad in itself, 
is especially harmful because to it can be ascribed, directly or in- 
directly, most of the other existing evils. 

The thirteen Pennsylvania state normal schools are controlled 
by lay boards that look upon these institutions largely as busi- 
ness ventures, and are primarily interested in their financial 
prosperity and indifferent to their educational influence. They 
are, moreover, ignorant of the larger educational needs of the 
commonwealth. In spite of the fact that the state does not own 
these schools, it gives annually thousands of dollars for their 
support and maintenance. But worst of all it does not even 
supervise the expenditure of the appropriations so that these 
institutions may do their work satisfactorily and lead in the 
educational progress and reforms of the state. 

Up to the present time, the state has invested in the normal 
schools between two and three million dollars in the form of 
buildings, equipment, and land. This money cannot be lost or 
surrendered entirely to these private corporations, and it seems 
that the only remedy will be for the state to assume entire con- 
trol by buying up at par the outstanding stock of these school 
corporations. This would require at most an expenditure of 
five hundred thousand dollars,^ but the state would then be able 
to conduct these institutions for professional purposes and put a 
stop to their use for private gain to the great detriment of public 
education. 

After this first important step is taken, the other reform will 
come more easily, since, as has already been explained in the 



^The act of 191 1 provided an appropriation of $200,000 for this purpose, 
and decreed that a similar appropriation shall be made by each succeed- 
ing session of the legislature " until all of the state normal schools which 
are offered on terms acceptable to the state Board of Education have been 
bought." 

91 



92 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

various chapters, many other defects spring largely from the 
fact that these publicly-supported institutions are under the con- 
trol of private corporations. 

The next two defects to be discussed are the diversity in pre- 
paration of the students enrolled, and the low entrance require- 
ments ; and since these two are so closely related, they will be 
considered together. First of all the lay boards demand a large 
enrollment rather than well-prepared students ; they are en- 
couraged in this demand by the state itself through the law 
which though making no stipulation as to a student's previous 
preparation or fitness to enroll in a professional school, grants 
to each institution sixty dollars a year for any student seventeen 
years old or above who takes " Methods." The resulting in- 
tense desire for students in order to obtain " state aid " keeps 
the entrance requirements so low that at graduation a student 
would find difficulty in obtaining Freshman standing in any one 
of the leading universities of the country. These conditions will 
undoubtedly be improved as soon as the state assumes control, 
for then a large enrollment will not be essential, and the stan- 
dards for admission can be raised at once. 

A superficial and over-crowded curriculum naturally results 
from a wide diversity in the preparation of the entering stu- 
dents. In classes, often enrolling from forty to sixty pupils, are 
to be found graduates of first-grade high schools and boys and 
girls who have not satisfactorily completed the work of the com- 
mon schools. The result is disastrous to all the students, for a 
majority are poorly prepared when they enter, and, because of 
an over-crowded course of study and abnormally large classes, 
all are poorly equipped when they are graduated. One reform 
leads logically to another : as soon as the state takes control and 
raises the entrance requirements, the regular course of study can 
be modified and improved, and the many special courses, offered 
for the purpose of increasing the enrollment, will disappear al- 
together. 

At present the faculties of the state normal schools are both 
overworked and underpaid. In the main, the lay boards of con- 
trol attempt to secure cheap rather than efficient service. Little 
encouragement is offered to real scholarship: the time and 
energy of the teachers are taken up with school duties of one 



Conclusions 93 

sort or another and self-improvement during the school term is 
impossible. At the same time the small salaries are effective 
barriers to advanced work in the summer or during a year's 
leave of absence. The present condition is bad, but if continued, 
only those of very limited scholarship, initiative, and ability will 
remain, while the most competent will leave to accept more lu- 
crative positions in other states, or possibly in other professions. 
The remedy for this condition is clear : the state must reward 
efficient service with reasonable salaries. 

Still further evidence of the evils of lay control and lack of 
state supervision by educational experts is found in the conflict 
existing between the normal schools and other parts of the 
public school system. This conflict has retarded the growth of 
high schools of the first grade, while it has fostered high schools 
of the lowest grade. The normal schools must leave the secon- 
dary field or the result will continue to be disastrous to the 
public school system as well as costly to the state. This evil 
will also disappear when a premium is no longer placed upon 
mere numbers and when the normal schools become really pro- 
fessional in character. 

These are, in the main, the evils that arise from the fact 
that the Pennsylvania normal schools are privately-controlled 
but publicly-supported institutions. But as this summary should 
include all the more prominent defects, it is necessary to con- 
sider the conduct of the state board examinations, for which the 
state, and not lay control, is directly at fault. The examina- 
tions were created to maintain uniform standards, but this pur- 
pose was soon lost sight of, and to-day, because of large classes, 
additional duties imposed upon the examiners, and somewhat to 
the personnel of the boards, the system has degenerated into a 
formal endorsement of the recommendations of the normal 
school faculties. The only effect these superficial examinations 
have is to transform the work of the schools, especially for a 
month or two at the end of each year, into a cramming process 
in preparation for the ordeal. When the state assumes control, 
these examinations will be abolished, and the faculties will be 
held directly responsible for the work of their graduates as 
public school teachers. 

In the introduction it was stated that the Pennsylvania school 
system was in such condition that it was impossible to describe 



94 Pennsylvania State Normal Schools 

it accurately without extending the study one or two years, and 
owing to this fact it was decided to examine but one type of 
institution. The state normal schools were selected, first because 
they are fairly representative of the system in vogue in Penn- 
sylvania to-day except that in the other types, private local con- 
trol is displaced by public local control; secondly because it was 
believed that one of the most potent reasons for reconstructing 
the Pennsylvania public school system lies in the fact that these 
so-called state normal schools do not have reasonably high stan- 
dards of scholarship and do not co-ordinate their work with 
that of the public high schools. As a consequence, they do not 
occupy their proper sphere in the educational system, and they 
have not accomplished the purpose of their establishment and 
maintenance, since their leadership has not succeeded in placing 
the teaching profession on a worthy plane. 

These normal schools were chosen also because their mis- 
management and inefficiency are undoubtedly due to the greatest 
defect of the Pennsylvania school system ; namely, that of leav- 
ing the direction of education to local initiative and control, 
public or private. 

This study has shown first, that reform in a state school 
system is futile until the state assumes control of all exam- 
inations for those desiring to enter the teaching profession ; sec- 
ondly, that inevitable and costly conflicts and duplication of 
work will continue until a unified system is established and large 
supervisory powers are given to educational experts appointed 
for the state. Since this is true, the state should immediately 
assume control of the normal schools and radically change them. 
In fact this will be the first and most important step toward 
a well-correlated and unified public school system in place of 
the antiquated and thoroughly inadequate one now in existence. 
This reconstruction will eventually be made through the co- 
operation of the leading educators and public spirited citizens. 
Not until then will the wealthy state of Pennsylvania be able to 
say she considers her schools as important to her future welfare 
as her factories, her mines, and her prosperous cities. Not until 
then will she be able to establish an open pathway leading di- 
rectly from the country and village schools to the professional 
schools, colleges and universities, and thereby give adequate edu- 
cational facilities to the children of the poor as well as the rich. 



SEP 19 1912 



